Traditional garden garden design — formal topiaries, boxwood maze

Traditional Formal Garden with Conical Topiaries & Boxwood Maze

Traditional Gardenformal topiariesboxwood maze2025-08-07

Aerial formal French Renaissance topiary garden featuring conical conifer topiaries in stone urns, manicured boxwood hedges in a maze pattern, gravel paths, and mature shade trees in the distance.

This is one of 9 traditional garden designs in the AI Garden Design library and one of 9 garden designs. Browse the full gallery or jump straight to more traditional designs.

What defines a traditional garden

Traditional gardens follow centuries-old principles: symmetry, formal hedges, structured planting beds, and a clear hierarchy of spaces. Boxwood parterres, manicured lawns, and classical statuary anchor the look.

Palette

deep green, soft pink, white, stone, polished black

Materials

natural stone, old brick, wrought iron, lead, hardwood

How to recreate this traditional garden

Lay the bones in symmetry, a central path, balanced beds on either side, paired specimen trees at the entrance. Clip boxwood into spheres, cones, or low hedges to define each bed. Plant within those beds in a controlled palette: roses, peonies, hydrangeas, and lavender, repeated rather than mixed. Finish with a focal point on the central axis: a sundial, a stone urn, or a bench.

Designing a garden

A dedicated garden, distinct from a multi-use backyard, is designed primarily around the plants and the experience of walking through them. Paths, focal points, and seasonal interest do more work than furniture.

Plan for seasonal interest in at least three of four seasons. Bone structure (evergreens, hedges, stone) carries the garden through winter; flowering shrubs carry spring; perennials and grasses peak in summer and autumn. A bench or two placed along the path gives reasons to stop and look. Soil prep before planting is the single highest-leverage thing you can do.

Plants that work in traditional gardens

A reliable starting palette for this style — full growing guides on each.

Roses

Rosa

The queen of flowers. Modern roses are easier to grow than ever, with disease-resistant varieties that bloom continuously from spring to frost.

Boxwood

Buxus

The foundation of formal garden design. Boxwood provides year-round evergreen structure, takes shaping beautifully, and defines spaces with elegant precision.

Hydrangea

Hydrangea macrophylla

Spectacular flowering shrubs with massive bloom clusters that last for months. Hydrangeas offer blue, pink, purple, and white flowers in shade or sun.

Lavender

Lavandula

The ultimate garden multitasker: fragrant flowers, silvery foliage, drought tolerance, and pollinator appeal. Lavender thrives in poor soil and full sun.

Wisteria

Wisteria sinensis / W. floribunda

The most spectacular flowering vine in existence. Wisteria produces cascading curtains of fragrant purple, blue, pink, or white blooms in spring.

Want this style for your garden?

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Frequently asked questions

How much does a traditional garden like this cost?

Real-world traditional garden builds vary enormously by region and finish level — budget jobs land around $5,000 to $15,000, mid-range builds with quality hardscape and mature plants sit between $20,000 and $50,000, and full luxury builds with premium materials, lighting, and water features can exceed $100,000. The AI Garden Design redesign itself takes minutes and costs nothing to preview before you commit to a build.

Can I recreate this traditional design in my own garden?

Yes. Upload a photo of your current garden and pick the Traditional style, or use this exact image as a style reference. The AI keeps the structural elements of your space — house, fence, hardscape — and reimagines the planting, furniture, and finishes in the chosen style. You get a photorealistic redesign in under two minutes that you can share with a landscape contractor.

What plants work best in a traditional garden?

Traditional gardens lean on a tight, repeated plant palette. The plants suggested on this page — paired with the design tips above — are the reliable starting set. Choose three to five and repeat them in mass rather than mixing many varieties; this is what separates a designed traditional garden from a busy collector's plot.