Q: What was the form, content and style of the Victorian villa garden? Include in your answer the inspirations for this garden type.

A new idea in the Victorian villa garden was the idea of Art and Nature coexisting, as apposed to the struggle in previous gardens with Art versus Nature. During the 19th century, most older parks were embellished by terraces and other formal features. In Victorian gardens, new estates were designed on a similar pattern with geometry within the balustrade, and serpentine curves. The gardener not only inherited the Capability Brown park but also the remains of formal gardens. What grew from this eventually became the most influential of all Victorian gardens, Chatsworth. In the Chatsworth gardens, the ideas of formal and informal gardens come together as one (Bisgrove, 1990). 

(http://shoestringlondon.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Chatsworth-garden.jpg)

Above, the strategic arrangement of shrubs shines as a formal element of the Chatsworth garden. The Victorian garden was all about showing wealth, taste, education, fashion, and possessions. The garden was essentially a 'grand status symbol.' One feature of a Victorian garden was a conservatory/glasshouse. Once glasshouses were popular, many exotic plants that needed warm weather could now grow in colder places, which gave a rise to necessity for foreign plants everywhere. Another feature of a formal Victorian garden was the emperor fountain, which is pictured below (https://forum.disabroad.org/bbcswebdav/pid-201567-dt-content-rid-619820_1/courses/garden_1502213/17%20Case%20Study%20-%20Biddulph%20%26%20Chatsworth.pdf).

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/Chatsworth_South_Front.jpg)

This is the king of water features, and the ultimate status symbol. At the time, it was a record-breaking, gravity-fed fountain. On record, it was able to reach the height of three hundred feet (http://www.chatsworth.org/attractions-and-events/garden/about-the-garden/paxton's-garden/emperor-fountain).

(http://ml.dcs.shef.ac.uk/prib2009/pages/sheffield.html)

Above is an example of how informal portions of the Chatsworth garden were. Many scattered trees can be found with a curved river which all hint towards informality. Another feature of an informal Victorian garden was rockwork (https://forum.disabroad.org/bbcswebdav/pid-201567-dt-content-rid-619820_1/courses/garden_1502213/17%20Case%20Study%20-%20Biddulph%20%26%20Chatsworth.pdf). Rockwork was essentially arranging different large rocks into something artistic: something that nature could have formed, but it was man made. The beauty of many informal gardens is the fact that they are tailored to look untouched by man. 

The Victorian villa garden showed growth and evolution from the past with the idea of Art and Nature acting together to form something greater. 

Citations

Bisgrove, Richard. The National Trust Book of the English Garden. London: Viking, 1990. 177. Print.