How To Incorporate French-Inspired Landscaping Into Your Backyard Design

Wandering through a palace garden in France, you can't help but be charmed by the architectural layout, artistic design, and cultivated color palette. French gardens are the pinnacle of elegance, made for strolling on a summer afternoon while admiring the roses or sitting next to a reflecting pool on a wrought-iron bench with a bottle of Bordeaux. It might be overwhelming to think you could recreate the impact of the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris in your own garden, with perfectly manicured hedges, marble sculptures, and white gravel paths. But you certainly can incorporate some key French-inspired elements into your own backyard, such as stonework, a water feature, and plenty of old-world flowers.

There are two design paths to take on the road to creating your homegrown version of a French garden. A more formal garden will have a foundation of geometric shapes and angles, symmetrically laid garden beds with straight borders, plenty of hardscaping, and dramatic marble sculptures or oversized urns. A formal garden will also have green boxwood hedges, meticulously maintained in rectangular or even rounded shapes or topiaries.  Flower beds will be laid out in perfect squares or rectangles, mirroring each other on either side of a stone or pea gravel path. Alternatively, a French country garden is a bit more rustic and lush. Outdoor benches and tables of vintage wrought iron can be nestled among shade-loving perennials, and climbing flowers can be planted to create layers of foliage.

The flowers you plant in your French-inspired garden should be classic, dramatic, and colorful. Large blooms like hydrangeas, peonies, and dahlias are common in French garden design. Graceful purple lilacs and irises provide height and color, as do gorgeous tulips planted in perfect rows. Savory herbs like rosemary, tarragon, and thyme are typical of a French kitchen garden, and they provide both scent and visual interest. Lavender is a French garden staple, and along with its beauty, it has the added benefit of keeping mosquitos away from your outdoor space.

Consider planting a romantic rose garden filled with soft shades of whites, pinks, and yellows, a common sight in the gardens of Paris. You don't have to break the budget to build a DIY trellis or pergola and plant it with climbing roses, wisteria, or clematis to bring old-fashioned charm to your space. Additionally, both a formal and a country French garden often have water features. A formal garden may have a reflecting pond or large stone fountain, while a country garden might have a peaceful, pondless water feature bubbling away amongst a grotto of lush ferns.

Remember, you don't have to recreate the Garden of Versailles in your backyard to accomplish a French garden feel. Incorporating just a few of these classic elements will be sure to elevate your design and create a mood and sense of refinement rivalling a classic French landscape.