During the 18th century in Europe, natural landscapes replaced the rigid symmetry of the formal Renaissance gardens. Cottage gardens were also dug up and replaced with uninterrupted vistas. Garden designer Lancelot Brown was nicknamed "Capability" because he described what he called the capabilities of each client's landscape.
Unusual "hot-house" flowers were the fashion too, as explorers brought them home from their travels. For example, Princess Augusta, who was the mother of George III of England, collected exotic species from Britain's expanding empire, at her estate. The green houses at Kew Gardens received shiploads from expeditions of discovery also.
The owners of private estates in England relied on Capability Brown to create the then fashionable natural look. He created transformations at great cost, as often formal avenues of trees and shrubs were obliterated to create the effect of open natural meadows. Lakes were dug and filled with water and new plantings were scattered around to give the impression that they had just grown there themselves.
To keep cattle from eating treasured new plantings, deep ditches were also dug by hand, to provide barriers between the gardens near a house and the open naturalistic vistas that has been created in the surrounding landscape. It all cost a lot of money.
This is Moya Andrews, and today we focused on Capability Brown.
Unusual "hot-house" flowers were the fashion too, as explorers brought them home from their travels. For example, Princess Augusta, who was the mother of George III of England, collected exotic species from Britain's expanding empire, at her estate. The green houses at Kew Gardens received shiploads from expeditions of discovery also.
The owners of private estates in England relied on Capability Brown to create the then fashionable natural look. He created transformations at great cost, as often formal avenues of trees and shrubs were obliterated to create the effect of open natural meadows. Lakes were dug and filled with water and new plantings were scattered around to give the impression that they had just grown there themselves.
To keep cattle from eating treasured new plantings, deep ditches were also dug by hand, to provide barriers between the gardens near a house and the open naturalistic vistas that has been created in the surrounding landscape. It all cost a lot of money.
This is Moya Andrews, and today we focused on Capability Brown.
