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BOTANICAL AND OTHER GARDENS PAGE |
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BOTANICAL
AND OTHER GARDENS |
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If you would like to see more of Buenos Aires through my
eyes, read my story of our time there, CLICK HERE |
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| The Chinese Garden came as a complete surprise to me and to my husband who has accompanied me in garden walks around the world. We each find peace in natural environments and interestingly we do so in different ways. This garden, designed and created by the Chinese as a gift to Sydney, found each of us in a place more soothing and tranquil than we had ever found before. On arriving we had felt the garden needed more attention and maybe it does. But, whatever magic the Chinese can conjure, they did so here in this very tiny garden of expansive peace. I hope slowly scrolling through these photographs will bring you some measure of peace as well. | ||||
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The sky is as integral to this garden as is water.
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Still or moving, water is an essential part of this tranquil place.
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In time there were two women walking in this part of the garden, each in her own private peaceful space.
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And, lest we forget, Sydney is a big city making this oasis even more healing.
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| I was very excited in anticipation of visiting this garden because I had read there were hundreds of acres so I was fully prepared to be astonished. As it turned out most of the acreage is woodsy and developed as walking or bike paths. What I would call "garden" constituted a small fraction of the entire property. Nevertheless there were some fine plants and trees to admire and many of them had accurate labels for which I am always especially grateful. I think this would be one of those wonderful places to have a wedding and they have all the facilities in place. | ||||
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ENGLISH
GARDEN The English Garden is more of a people's city park than a straight forward garden, though the plantings are lovely and it was landscaped by someone very talented in the field. Most importantly, it is a place for people to enjoy trees and lawns and bikes and kiosks with food treats. It is a place to bring children at the end of a long work day. Both they and their parents can be refreshed in a place such as this. |
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If
you would like to see more of Buenos Aires through my eyes,
read my story of our time there, CLICK HERE |
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| This small park like garden seems to have seen better days, though it was created in 1992 which isn't that long ago. On the day we arrived it was closed which wasn't obvious as the gates were wide open. We walked in and strolled for about twenty minutes when we encountered the tiny museum dedicated to the thousands of people lost in the terrible earthquake of 1960 which destroyed the entire old town. The curator pictured below, Abdellah Tamri, chatted amiably with us explaining what had happened. That's also when we learned the garden wasn't open to the public at that hour. Despite this rather lackluster review of the garden, I rather enjoyed it as did my husband. | ||||
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| This garden seemed especially ambitious in this tropical seaside location. They couldn't have picked a more difficult place to develop a garden, but they did a beautiful job of laying out extensive grounds including many of the plants and trees we would expect to find and many that were a surprise. The maintenance difficulties in this environment are evident in the photograph of the sign below. | ||||
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| If you are lucky enough to be visiting Lanzarote in the cooler months of the year, this is a place you shouldn't miss. Because it is essentially a very large deep black volcanic rock hole you will need some real stamina to visit late in the day or in the warmer months of the year. Even if you don't love cactus, you may find it as fascinating as we did to see nature's real survivors up close and personal. There are hundreds of plants from the Americas, Madagascar and The Canary Islands all artfully arranged by the artist, César Manrique, who created this extraordinary garden. It's open from 10 to 5:30 and costs just 5 Euros. For those of you less intrigued by cactus there is a chic place for coffee, wine and beer overlooking the garden. | ||||
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JARDIN
ETNOBOTANICO BOTANICAL
GARDEN Click on Botanical Garden to take a tour of this relatively new and very exciting garden in the City of Oaxaca, Mexico. Huge and perfect cactus specimens have been saved from destruction during state construction projects such as highways and damns. The cactus are now planted and preserved in this large walled garden. If you would like to see more of Oaxaca through my eyes in an A to Z guide, visit Oaxaca-Today.com CLICK HERE |
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A Birds Eye View of the Garden
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ORTO
BOTANICO or BOTANICAL GARDEN The Botanical Garden in Naples was as much of a surprise as was everything else about the city. It is fabulous. It is open in the morning until early afternoon and is free to the public. They do request that you call in advance of your visit to make a reservation. If you have a disability of some kind, use the side entrance, a gated driveway. Make your situation visible in front of the security camera and they'll open the gate for you. Otherwise you'll be facing a two story stone staircase at the front entrance. You will see lots of photographs of our visit to the garden on many of the pages on this website. To see more of the garden and of Naples, take a look at my photographic story written after our last visit, Exploring Naples. |
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If
you would like to see more of Naples, Italy, through my
eyes, read my story of our time there, CLICK HERE |
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ORTOBOTANICO or
BOTANICAL GARDEN This
is a Botanical Garden for those of us who are gardeners,
for dads with little children to entertain and enlighten,
for poets to dream in and for the weary to find rest
and peace in the simple beauty of the place.
In
other
words
this is a glorious garden, a huge space with extraordinary
plants for us to enjoy and appreciate and maybe to find
a bit of the peace that the human environment has not
provided. To
see
more of this extraordinary garden and of Sicily, take
a look
at my
photographic
stories from
our
last
visit, |
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If
you would like to see more of Sicily through my eyes and
read my story of our time there, CLICK
HERE |
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PARQUE
DE LAS LEYENDAS Parque de las Leyendas isn't a strictly a botanical garden and it isn't strictly a garden at all. It seems to be a place that offers something for everyone -- gardens, a zoo, recreation and archaeological ruins. It doesn't get great overall reviews, but we found the garden well worth the trip to see it. Throughout the pages of this website, you'll see lots of plant photographs taken in this garden. |
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ROGER
WILLIAMS PARK BOTANICAL CENTER This is a relatively new project in the Roger Williams Park and like all the others it is to be lauded for design. As you will see in the photograph of the facility below, most of it is an interior garden in quite extravagant greenhouses. The outside areas have been laid out in appealing meandering pathways and the plantings for the most part look like good old New England garden materials able to survive the ice and snow of winter. Inside the greenhouses is another world and one well worth exploring. |
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Photographed: At the Roger Williams Park Botanical Center in Rhode Island in 2013.
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Photographed: At the Roger Williams Park Botanical Center in Rhode Island in 2013.
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Photographed: At the Roger Williams Park Botanical Center in Rhode Island in 2013.
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Photographed: At the Roger Williams Park Botanical Center in Rhode Island in 2014.
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ROSEDAL
GARDEN Rosedal is a large part of an even larger park system within walking distance of some of the more chic areas of the city. If you love roses, this is a garden just for you. If you just like roses you may just learn to love them. As if designed with me in mind, the lawn grass in Rosedal is all zoysia! |
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If
you would like to see more of Buenos Aires through my
eyes and read my story of our time there, CLICK HERE |
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ROYAL
BOTANIC GARDEN This is a beautifully landscaped park like botanical garden right in the center of downtown Sydney. You'll see extraordinary plantings, along with folks strolling during lunch and kids having a kickball game. All in all a very nice atmosphere. If it sounds like it might be crowded, think again. It's huge; big enough to accommodate everyone. |
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THUYA
GARDEN Thuya was a very pleasant surprise. Not only was it an artfully landscaped garden, it also did its beautiful plant work organically, once again proving that it can be done. Here is their statement, "We at Thuya Garden are proud of our organic horticultural practices. We exclude the use of all non-organic pesticides and herbicides and strictly limit the application of any chemical fertilizer." I could not have said it better myself. |
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URBINO
BOTANICAL GARDEN This
little garden was a delightful surprise for me to find
in a mid-spring visit to Italy. Bulbs were up and in
flower, but the spring clean
up was still
in the works. Winter was over, but summer had yet to arrive. It
reminded me very much of my spring garden in Rhode Island,
a small State in Northern New England. |
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| When we visited this garden it had seen decidedly better days. Still we spent a few hours there enjoying what still was extraordinary while feeling deeply for what had once been. Villa Julia sits between the Ortobotanico and the main road running by the ocean. When the garden was conceived the location must have been almost perfect. If you are lucky enough to visit Palermo I would say Villa Julia is an absolute must. As a bonus, right across the street from the entrance is a gelato shop to please even more of your senses. | ||||
Photographed: At Villa Julia in Palermo, Sicily, in Italy in 2012.
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Photographed: At Villa Julia in Palermo, Sicily, in Italy in 2012.
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Photographed: In the garden at Viscaya in Miami, Florida, in 2014.
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Photographed: In the garden at Viscaya in Miami, Florida, in 2014.
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Photographed: In the garden at Viscaya in Miami, Florida, in 2014.
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VICTORIAN
ROSE GARDEN This is a relatively small garden with an adjacent wedding/event structure. We saw it in September when plants in Rhode Island begin preparing for winter so it was not at its perfect best, but it was still pretty wonderful. Most of the roses I saw were of the variety we had in our garden in my childhood -- small roses by the hundreds, usually pink, with small leaved rambling plants. I clearly remember crying hysterically when my parents would trim the roses as each of my parents was cursed with a black thumb and each year we would lose more plants. Below is a bit of what these roses look like. |
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This
is a photograph with Lic. Manilo Speciale, Curator of the
Palermo Ortobotanico. He transformed much
of this
extraordinary garden while coping with a long term drought.
Many of the once inoperative fountains and pools have been
restored and plants have been identified in ways which help
the public appreciate the many species and origins of this
extraordinary and historic plant collection.
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