Talk:English landscape garden

Anglo-Chinese Garden

I edited the new text added to this article which stated that the Chinese garden was the major influence on the English garden. Some gardens certainly have Chinese elements, but I haven't seen any other sources that make the case that the major English gardens like Stourhead were based on Chinese aestetics. Does anyone else have thoughts on this? SiefkinDR (talk) 15:37, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Spelling conventions

I noticed that this article uses some American spellings (center) together with British spellings (modelled). It could be argued that as the first editor used American spellings it should use American spellings. On the other hand it could be argued that as this is about English gardens it should use British spellings. My question is this: Should we leave the spelling alone, or use American or British spellings consistently? What do other editors think?

This is what the Wikipedia policy manual says:

"In general, disputes over which English variety to use in an article are strongly discouraged. Such debates rarely accomplish anything apart from wasting time and engendering controversy. When an English variety's consistent usage has been established in an article, it is maintained in the absence of consensus to the contrary. With few exceptions (e.g. when a topic has strong national ties or a term/spelling carries less ambiguity), there is no valid reason for such a change. When no English variety has been established and discussion cannot resolve the issue, the variety used in the first non-stub revision is considered the default. If no English variety was used consistently, the tie is broken by the first post-stub contributor to introduce text written in a particular English variety. The variety established for use in a given article can be documented by placing the appropriate Varieties of English template on its talk page. An article should not be edited or renamed simply to switch from one valid use of English to another. Editors who alter an existing variety can be advised of this guideline via the placement of In a recent edit, you changed one or more words or styles from one national variety of English to another. Because Wikipedia has readers from all over the world, our policy is to respect national varieties of English in Wikipedia articles.

For a subject exclusively related to the United Kingdom (for example, a famous British person), use British English. For something related to the United States in the same way, use American English. For something related to another English-speaking country, such as Canada, Australia, or New Zealand, use the variety of English used there. For an international topic, use the form of English that the original author used.

In view of that, please don't change articles from one version of English to another, even if you don't normally use the version in which the article is written. Respect other people's versions of English. They, in turn, should respect yours. Other general guidelines on how Wikipedia articles are written can be found in the Manual of Style. If you have any questions about this, you can ask me on my talk page or visit the help desk. Thank you. on their talk pages."

I can undesrtand the feeling that an article about the English garden should be in British English, but in this case the article was originally written in American English, and an article should not be edited simply to change it from one variety of English to another. SiefkinDR (talk) 18:01, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

I think what we have here is a clash of guidelines. As you have admitted, the subject of the article is essentially English. However, because you are the major contributor, you have used American spellings in your contributions to the article. We now have the situation where there is a mixture of American and British spellings in the one article. One could take the point of view that every editor should use their own spelling conventions in this article, and therefore no changes should be made. My question therefore remains unanswered. Do you accept the status quo or do you apply the spelling conventions, either British or American, consistently? Michael Glass (talk) 13:00, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

I think that it's not really about "a subject exclusively related to the United Kingdom" because the article mainly discusses the type of garden, which apparently can also be found outside of the United Kingdom, if I understood correctly. I'm unclear if there are "English landscape gardens" in the US, which would more clearly support finding it to be not-exclusively-British. Anyway, personally, I'd say stick with the first contributor. YMMV. AgnosticAphid talk 08:28, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

• In a way it doesn't really matter which dialect this article uses, but it should be consistent. I have edited it to use UK English as per WP:TIES; if a strong consensus emerges to change it then I am ok with that. --John (talk) 19:29, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

This article was written almost entirely in American English (I contributed a very large part of it myself) and I don't see a compelling reason to convert it now to British English. It seems to me that the rules call for respecting the language in which the article was written. The style of garden is found around the world, not just in England, there are fine English gardens in Chicago, Los Angeles, and many other cities; and I respect the style enormously; I've also done the articles on the French garden, the Italian Renaissance garden, the Japanese garden and the Chinese garden, all in American English. Again, I don't see any compelling reason to change it from the language in which it was written, but of course I will accept whatever the consensus is. SiefkinDR (talk) 21:49, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I strongly object to a unilateral decision to rewrite the article to UK english. At the least there are important wikipedia policies that need to be discussed before such a change is made. WP:RETAIN, which is part of the MOS, says, "An article should not be edited or renamed simply to switch from one valid use of English to another. Editors who alter an existing variety can be advised of this guideline via the placement of [a certain template that I don't want to show here] on their talk pages." The bold is present in the MOS. I am about to leave on a vacation and don't really have time to do more than leave this comment, but like I said, I object. The MOS is clear that ordinarily the first version of english used in the article is the version that should consistently be used in the article. It is also clear that copy editing to change from one type of english to another can result in a warning. You didn't even respond to what I had to say about why I didn't think it had "strong national ties" exactly before you made your unilateral change. AgnosticAphid talk 17:49, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I reverted the edit. I had to also revert anomiebot because I got a "conflicting edits" message. I'm really not very experienced with reversions, but I think that it's fair to revert this edit under WP:BRD. I apologize in advance if I shouldn't have reverted or made a technical mistake or something. AgnosticAphid talk 18:01, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Merger proposal

A rather bizarre situation has developed here. This article is called 'English garden' which is a term that seems to be used everywhere except England. In England this type of garden would be called a 'landscape garden' and obviously the term 'English garden' is a broad term that could refer to any type of garden found in England. There is an article called Landscape garden which is a stub but the first line of it says "The term landscape garden is often used to describe the English garden design style characteristic of the eighteenth century..." making it in effect a redirect to this article. How about we merge the two and change the title of this article to "English landscape garden" which would cover both terms. As it is, the article already begins with explanation of the different terms and both terms would redirect to it. I know a merger has been proposed before but it was years ago and there was no discussion at the time. Richerman (talk) 01:20, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree; I think the English landscape garden title would be correct, and that the two articles could be merged. SiefkinDR (talk) 07:17, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

•  Done Richerman (talk) 18:28, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Incorrect dates?

The section of the article on Lancelot Brown claims that he began his career in 1740 as a gardener at Stowe under Charles Bridgeman, but the article on Charles Bridgeman puts his date of death at 1738. One of them's got to be wrong, but which? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.120.83.66 (talk) 17:33, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Proposed Title Change

As a result of the merger proposals above, "English landscape garden" subsumed "landscape garden." This may be inadequate for an entry with an international scope, both because "English" is not used in England to describe the style, and because the style developed in unique ways in distinct locations throughout the century. "Landscape Garden", however, is overly broad and may not signify the eighteenth-century development. I propose changing the current title to "picturesque landscape garden," which has been preferred in publications on the development of this style in Europe. EWArthistory (talk) 18:14, 25 October 2023 (UTC)