A Long and Narrow Front Garden Framing an Alley

The house in a small French village is sited towards the back of this narrow lot, away from the road, making it look like a woodland cottage nested in all that vegetation.

The plantings are mostly shrubs and perennials with a variety of foliage color and shape for year round interest,

A few trees, including a small pear tree in the front, add structure and make it look like an older, well established garden mixed border. Some of the plantings include fuchsias, pampas grasses, barberry, hydrangeas, roses, black eyed susan, and large patches of pink and white erigeron ground cover.

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Barcelona’s Horta Labyrinth Gardens: The Romantic Garden

Located in the Horta district in northern Barcelona, the Labyrinth Garden was created in the late 18th century by the owner of the estate, marquis Joan Antoni Desvalls i d’Ardena, who commisioned Italian garden architect  Domenico Bagutti. This is when the maze was created and part of the gardens in the neo-classical style.

In the mid 19th century, the gardens were then expanded by the marquis descendants to expand the garden in the romantic style with a waterfall, large trees, gazebo, statues, and flower beds.

This garden is the oldest of its kind in Barcelona. The family turned it over to the city in 1967, and it opened as a public park in 1971.

To read more about this garden, click here, here, or here for Wikipedia.

The park can be roughly divided into three main areas: the first includes the country house and adjacent gardens, the second would be the 18th century maze and pavilion, the third includes  the romantic garden and waterfall.

In this post, I will feature the Romantic Garden. It is the latter 19th century extension of the maze gardens. It features small hedged squares with large shade trees; the focus of this garden is the water features, starting at the top with a waterfall, continuing with canals along this narrow garden. The main garden ends with a false graveyard garden before leading to a small garden arranged symetrically around a pond.

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Landscaped Terraced Garden in Brittany

This lovely garden is terraced on a small hill in a picturesque coastal village in norther Brittany, France, with lovely stone retaining walls and steps leading from the house up to the higher levels.  It is landscaped with many of the shrubs and perennials that are seen in many other Brittany gardens and are very well suited to the climate: hebe, hydrangeas, roses, wisteria, alyssum, viburnum …

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“Crafty” Country Garden in a Small Brittany Village

The front display at this garden gate is not for every one, but it certainly stands out. Gardening clay pots are arranged into “sculpture” of story book characters such as Little Red Riding Hood or the French Becassine. The garden itself, while fairly small, has a nice variety of fruit trees underplanted with flowers and perennials, lavender or roses, and in some areas, bordered by small hedges for traditional French style borders.

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Roundabout Gardens and Borders in Crozon, France

French towns and villages often try to outdo one another with their floral displays and borders throughout. One area where they particularly excel is the roundabouts.

Roundabouts are the French version of the intersection, and particularly where the road enter the town, will plant a lavish mini garden in the middle of the roundabout.  I wrote about one already that was done as a Japanese rock garden. At each end of the small town of Crozon is a roundabout: the first one is more tropical, the second is paired with a mixed border along the median for a lavish floral display.

Tropical Roundabout:

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Floral Roundabout and Border:

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