What is a French formal garden?

A French formal garden is designed with a highly organized and refined style.

It features symmetrical shapes, geometric effects and amazing cascades. Alongside alleyways and impeccable lawns, extravagant fountains suddenly appear. Sculpted box trees hide statues inspired from Antiquity. The French formal garden symbolizes the domestication of nature, with real architecture of vegetation.

In France, it was Le Nôtre, Louis XIV’s landscape architect, who popularized this style that came from Italy. His design of the Palace of Versailles gardens was imitated all over Europe! In spite of its ordered appearance, the French formal garden is full of ingenuity: playing on perspective, lines and patterns. Even today, gardens in this style are found in many castles. They are the opposite of English landscape gardens that are more romantic, full of curves and abundant vegetation. What other types of garden are there? Many traditions developed over the years in different regions of the world.