Official garden culture in Brazil began with the installation of the Portuguese court in the country at the beginning of the 19th century, encouraging visits from naturalists of that age and giving rise to the installation of artistic missions, above all from the French, who aided later government interventions in public park and garden areas. Nevertheless, in daily life, the Brazilian’s relationship with plant cultivation is a heritage composed of autochthonous (Indian), slave and immigrant cultures. Thus it gave rise to informal gardening and a plant use culture from the discovery of the Terra brasilis in 1500. It became more pronounced as of the middle of the 18th century with the mass arrival of the first Azorean immigrants. Most European immigrants came to the south of Brazil in a systematic way during the imperial phase in the 19th century. There one can gain a sense of different forms of intervention in gardens and landscaping as result of this mixture. There is a vernacular landscaping with minimal artistic intervention characterized principally by the Pampa and local forests. It represents the fancy of descendents of Indians and Africans in the region. They coexist with the patrimonial and naturalist identity landscaping of immigrants of diverse European origins. Three case studies present aspects of these landscaping models from three cities of the region. It includes the difficulty of a glimpse of new landscaping and gardens in agricultural border areas, considered that for most European descendents concern for environmental questions is still incipient. INTRODUCTION To know the identity of landscapes is to know the process of appropriation of a territory by its society. The south of Brazil has societies of numerous European, African, and Asian origins as well as of autochthonous/indigenous origins. The definition of landscape by the European Landscape Convention implies to understand how a community perceives and uses its territory (Council of Europe, 2000). Therefore, it is important to study how different populations appropriate their territories, and express their yearnings through the landscape and the existence of gardens. This article seeks to test the hypothesis that in the south of Brazil there are three models of intervention in the landscape, the older vernacular, the patrimonial of European origin, and the modern naturalist, a mixture of the two former models. MATERIALS AND METHODS Three studies were made in the cities of Sant’Ana do Livramento, Blumenau, and Curitiba in the south of Brazil. During one month of field research in each city historiographic, geographic, pictorial, and literary sources were studied in libraries and local research institutes. A descriptive analysis of the locations was prepared based on the information gathered. In the social survey 111 interviewees over 18 years of age (41 in Sant’Ana do Livramento; 40 in Blumenau and 30 in Curitiba) responded to a semidirected questionnaire. Content analysis identified categories that express the personal values and perceptions regarding the territory. For this article, the presence of the garden is especially highlighted through the identification of the definition of landscaping motifs Proc. XXVIIIth IHC – IS on Adv. in Ornamentals, Landscape & Urban Hort. Ed.: G. Groening Acta Hort. 937, ISHS 2012 1268 and of beautiful landscapes by those interviewed. It is understood that the garden is an individual expression and the landscape is the collective expression. So both were studied at the same time. Description was followed by a phase of on-site verification. Then the intentionality in zoning became evaluated to see if there was enrichment or a modification of the existing theoretical approach. The model obtained refers to specifics and takes into account history. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Vernacular The vernacular model is established in a territory with a historical agrarian structure of large rural properties. The main source of income is livestock raising in these large spaces of the pampa. Even with a low GDP the population is satisfied with the tranquil quality of small town life. Community leisure is related to gaucho practices and folklore, such as rodeos, dances, and characteristic parades, of a very local nature. The garden is practically forgotten. The people that live in the city relate the following motifs to the pampa: gaucho structures (CTG is a space where are practiced the traditions of gauchos, and also represents the cultural movement that seeks to honor the folklore, savoir-vivre and savoirfaire of the gaucho), fields, water resources (rivers, small dams and streams), and the presence of the gaucho who works with cattle. Four people did not know how to indicate examples of typical motifs of this landscape (Table 1). In rural areas the motifs cited are rolling land with hills (cerros-craggy hills and coxilhas-knolls), capoes-coppices, bosques-woods, marcos-landmarks, isolated trees such as eucalyptus and espinilho (Mimosa uruguensis). The architectural elements are the mangueiras-cattle chutes, places where one works with cattle, constructed by slaves, houses with porches, and stone houses. The dry land near the border to Uruguay is also considered a landscape motif (11,9%, Table 1). It is a symbol of the transition of the culture of two countries. The city of Sant’Ana do Livramento has few publicized images. Early (1900) images show an originally Portuguese architecture with one-story coupled houses. The lay of the land is notable with craggy hills forming a belt around the city. Most of those interviewed chose and identified at least a craggy hill as a regional landscape motif. It was on top of these hills where the Charruan Indians performed their ceremonies and rituals connected with the cosmos (death, thanksgiving, etc.). A topographical landmark, they are military obelisks that mark the limit of the border with the Uruguay (Fig. 1A), made of concrete is a strong regional symbol which appears in photographs of competitions from 1993 to 1995. Beautiful landscapes are those that may be seen from the heights of the craggy hills, principally at sunset. For the rural dwellers the set of hills with prairie land is more evident (92,3%) than for the urban dwellers (59%). The latter are more remote from the open plains (rural zone). For 50% of those interviewed the rural zone and nature are the same thing. For rural dwellers the city is downtown, the square, and the church, while urban dwellers prefer leisure locations such as duty free shops, clubs, and hills for outings. There were statements like: “life is calm here, gauchos are zen”; “when I come back from a trip and see the Palomas Hill, I feel at home” (3 people). They chose the photos of prairie land, hills, and gauchos in circulation, and spontaneously admit that they value their original landscapes. As vernacular, around the superimposed hills, knolls and crags, appears the rural landscape of the Greek Arcadia, and in the city, city blocks, coupled houses and neoclassic themes complete the urban landscape, all wrapped up in the Minuano wind (very cold wind of the south, whose name honors the tribe of Minuanos, nomadic ancestral inhabitants of these landscapes). The inhabitants hope for greater economic development for they value day-to-day life and wish to remain. Above all, rural dwellers identify landscape motifs from the pampa. It is a border town, more than the pampa. The presence of the gaucho fills the image of this empty pampa an emptiness of the nomadic