To add classic elegance to your home’s exterior, consider taking inspiration from French gardens. French garden design has a legacy of precise, formal and beautiful landscaping, making it the perfect style for homeowners wanting to dress up their outdoor space.
While a French garden can be more maintenance than other garden styles due to the emphasis on clean edges and pristine shapes, understanding the fundamentals will help you achieve the same aesthetic at home.
To help, here is a basic guide to the key elements of French garden design:
The home as a focal point
Traditional French gardens highlight the home or residence as the focal point of the landscape. Garden designs typically include pathways directing visitors to the front door, often oriented perpendicular to the facade.
While Stucco and stonework homes are classic French focal points, any style of home can use this same design scheme.
Symmetry
Symmetrical lines are essential to French garden design. When creating pathways, planting or arranging shrubs, it’s crucial to keep everything precise and even on both sides. Boxwood shrubs are a popular way to create symmetry by growing them into easily trimmed hedge rows. Geometric shapes like diamonds, triangles and semicircles are all worth exploring in your design, as long as the overall aesthetic maintains its symmetry.
Fountains & water features
Water features like stone garden fountains, reflecting pools and carefully manicured ponds are important elements in French gardens. Traditional French garden fountains come in several varieties, including free-standing fountains and fountains built into walls. Multi-tiered and highly ornamental designs are perfect options to incorporate water into your formal French garden.
Simple color palettes
Formal gardens tend to stick to simple color palettes. Cool colors are especially popular for French style gardens, so when choosing plants or flowers, err on the side of gray, white, blue and purple. Lavender is the traditional choice for French garden style, and easy to grow either in decorative containers or in carefully manicured planting beds.
While these are some key elements of French garden design, they are only guidelines to inspire you. Using this design scheme, you can add custom creativity and create a French style garden all your own.
About the Author
Pablo Torres
Pablo Torres is a qualified Real Estate Agent with over 10 years experience in real estate sales, due diligence and contract negotiations. Knowledgeable of South Florida neighborhoods. Currently, Pablo focuses his skills on all markets in the Miami metropolitan area.
He has the ability to understand sellers, buyers and renters needs with excellent communication. Fluent in English and Spanish with working knowledge of Portuguese. Pablo has impeccable reputation and a passion for real estate.
He graduated with a degree in International Business from Florida International University (1998) and a masters in business administration from Nova Southeastern University (2003). He had embarked on a career in commercial banking before being driven to switch to one of his passions-real estate.
Dedication, perseverance and punctuality allowed Pablo to sell different types of properties. His expertise with South Florida's cultural diversity has allowed him to sell real estate to both buyers and sellers.
Part of what makes Pablo so successful is his dedication to exceptional customer service and his devotion to their needs, whether they are buying or selling properties. Pablo has many repeat customers who cite his willingness to work long hours to resolve the toughest issues, as a reason why they stick with him. Torres integrity, attention to detail and careful handling of a transaction, exceeds their expectations. Sellers know that Pablo's extensive and personalized marketing strategies, means that their listing is seen by most buyers.
As a real estate professional, Pablo has the tools to represent your interests in virtually any transaction. Pablo's ability to interview, reason and figure out the smallest details makes every successful transaction a seamless process. Pablo is the right real estate professional to hire.
