A formal garden is a garden laid out according to a clear geometric plan, with straight paths, symmetrical beds, clipped hedges and carefully placed ornaments. Typical features include parterres, knot gardens, topiary, avenues, terraces, pools and fountains, all arranged to emphasise order and the controlling hand of the designer.
The tradition derives from Renaissance Italy and reached its height in seventeenth-century France, where André Le Nôtre created the vast gardens at Versailles. In England, formal gardens flourished under the Tudors and Stuarts and especially in the reign of William and Mary, when Dutch influence brought canals, clipped evergreens and lead statuary. In the eighteenth century many were swept away in favour of the naturalistic landscape park, but the style returned in the Victorian period with elaborate bedding schemes and Italianate terraces. Edwardian designers, notably Gertrude Jekyll working with Edwin Lutyens, combined formal structure with generous planting. Formal gardens rely on ornament for focus, and urns, statues, sundials, obelisks and seats in stone, lead and cast iron are central to the antique garden trade. Choosing pieces of the right scale and period helps a garden layout read clearly.
