In way over my head on this topic, but why not...I'd have to say the early to mid 1800's, specifically when Frederick Law Olmstead and the ilk were deliberately adding permanent green space to large urban clots. Living in the city, you see one of those open spaces and something relaxes inside you for a moment. Seems like most of our great urban parks date from, or were inspired by that period. I like to think they inspired John Muir to petition for even large parks. Whenever I tend my own urban 'landscape', I pretend I'm carrying on their work :-)

Can't say as I have any particular style or age of gardening that inspires me. I look to Nature; I notice, for instance, that wildflowers seem to be most beautiful(to me)when there are 3 dominant colors. So I try to mimic that in a part of my gardens. Another influence is everyday people's gardens that I see in my daily life, both now and in the past.

Good question, INK.

There are two garden styles that move me, one is from the golden age of the Islamic garden, perhaps especially the travelling version as found in Spain. The other, maybe coincidently, maybe not, is the work of Luis Barragan in Mexico City.
Whenever I feel that my work is mundane and lifeless I look to the dedication that went into the first and the bravura that went into the second.
Now, and this is not meant to be political, a project that would really light my candle would be the restoration of gardens recently destroyed in the country that gave us the word "paradise".

INK--
Since you refer to the Middle East, I wonder what the genesis was for the mythological Garden of Eden of the scriptures. Was this a cultural memory of a golden age in the Tigris/Euphrates area before the climate changed?

Egyptianonion

I would have to say it was the Edwardian Golden Age. The garden of my youth that influenced my the most was probably started in the 1930's by this elderly couple. It was definately influenced by what they saw in the teens and twenties. My granmother was a big influence and she was born in 1898.

Another big influence would be the renasance gardens of Italy.

I'm most influenced by...I'm not certain. (big surprise, eh?) Mother tended to do mixed perennial borders. I adore roses--but not "Rose Gardens." I like it when the plants are mixed together...I guess in and Edwardian fashion. Certainly "cottage" gardens appeal to me. (Horrors!) I like that overly full look--and am constantly overplanting as a result. (I am attempting to overcome this gardening character flaw.)

Yet I am also intrigued by woodland gardens--ala Olmstead, I suppose. The wild world--but "managed"--but not LOOKING too managed. (Sections of Central Park in NY have that look.) That is the look I am hoping to create in the "unlandscaped" area of my yard--which is what I will be tackling over the next few years. Not certain how I will post pics...the few I've taken seem to be masses of indistiguishable green...but I'll keep trying.

My favorite "garden" book is, was, and always has been, The Secret Garden. I've always loved the idea of a wild garden brought back, barely, into civilized order. (So..Edwardian it must be!)

melanie

I don't have a style or period that is a favorite, rather specific gardens that as you say lights my candle. Some I've seen first hand, some I long to see. Villandry is one. So is Villa I Tatti in Florence. The glass houses at Kew. Here Greenwood Gardens in its wonderful prerestored rundown state is incredibly beautiful. I visited a wonderful Ellen Biddle Shipman garden this past spring--only the bones were left. Some private gardens I've visited through the Garden Conservancy have been inspiring in their personal idiosycracies. The Alhambra and the garden at Majorelle along with any garden by Burle Marx are some I long to see. I could go on and on and on...

The "on and on" is a bit scary, isn't it Susan? In a way this "I want it all" syndrome can be cured by a study of intention. The realisation is the icing on the cake, if you like, whereas reading what was in the mind of the designers (whoever they were) carries a certain similarity, I believe.
The Menton gardens of Captain Lawrence Johnson have recently been restored and although this is a completely different place from Hidcote the intention is largely (I use this word advisedly) the same. The intention?

I'm not sure what you mean by intention, but of the gardens that I have visited and those I wish to visit the result (I'm not sure that's the right word) is, for me, a magical quality that leaves me peaceful and breathless simultaneously. There is also an aura of joy in the making of the garden that is part of the character of place.

What I think I mean is that a garden of merit, for want of a better phrase, would be one that follows an ideal, or perhaps dream, of some sort. Maybe this is Eden or Paradise or that vague term 'Japanese garden' but it seems to me that the intention is a better model than the things that make the garden.
To give an example: the intentions behind a Persian garden were practical and idealistic, the intention was to create a protected place or refuge. This led to barriers to shield from the wind and an irrigation system to keep the plants alive (there is a bit more too it that that but this will serve in this example.) If you wanted to make a garden as a protected place today you would still want to have it enclosed but this would not have to be a wall of mud bricks.

The "intentions" of Gertrude Jekyll have been my greatest influence. I have read as much of her writing and books about her as I could get my hands on. Although she designed some very large cohesive gardens by modern standards, I think that she viewed the garden as many individual portraits as through the lens of a camera. She liked to create mixed borders with impressionistic colour combinations. I also love her planted rock walls but I am not able to have one of those as yet. Often when I wonder what to do in a section of my garden I ask my self what would Jekyll do? Even when I admire Monet's garden I ask myself what would Jekyll have done with the same elements.

Sharon