Everyone has their own favorite style of gardening.
Some like everything neat and tidy,
with rows of flowers marching up and down the landscape like little soldiers.
Others (like me) love the blowsy, anything-goes style
of the classic English cottage garden.
If something self-seeds somewhere, well, it was meant to be, wasn't it?
(photo: Google Images)
On a recent trip to Europe, I was lucky to be able to visit several gardens,
each as individual as the country it was in.
Take a tour with me!
On the Costa Brava of Spain,
I visited the Marimurtra Botanical Garden,
high on a cliff overlooking the Meditteranean ocean.
Here, a wild combination of succulents and cacti co-existed peacefully
with long rows of colorful blooms.
At the stunning Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild in Cap Ferrat, France,
the themed gardens had me furiously scribbling notes, not wanting to forget anything I saw...
I plan to copy everything for my own small garden here in North Carolina.
(Hey, a girl can dream, can't she?)
I luuuurve a walled-in garden-it's contained chaos!
In Monaco, the profusion of blooms at the Princess Grace Rose Garden
had me sniffing everything in sight.
While this type of structured garden isn't my favorite,
there is no denying the appeal of thousands of roses in bloom at the same time.
Croatia is beginning to come out of the fog of war,
and ornate gardens were not to be found.
Yet look over a fence or stone wall, and there would inevitably be a small garden,
messy and mixed with bits of everyday life...but flowers there were!
Wisteria, lilacs, spray roses, geranium...
Not to mention the sweet scent of blooming orange and lemon trees!
In the northern Italian town of Tirano, I accidentally came upon the Palazzo Salis,
built in the 1600's and filled with incredible frescoes.
I was in love with their lovely walled-in garden.
The lilacs and roses were in bloom,
and the bright ochre color of the walls made an
eye-popping backdrop to the manicured boxwood beds.
Geranium-filled windowboxes accenting ornate antique ironwork...
what's not to love?
In Nice, France where space is a premium, windowboxes and pots were the thing.
Spilling out their contents for all to see,
they added a wonderful punch of color to every town square.
So tell me, what is your gardening style?
Burlington, North Carolina USA
910-655-2337
www.bloomersbouquets.com
bloomersflorist@yahoo.com
All photos belong to me, Debra Graham, unless credited otherwise.
So glad to see The Bee. We missed you! As to casual vs. formal, I never met a garden I didn't love, but here on our own quarter-acre, controlled chaos rules, except in the Meditation Garden, where all is simplicity. Lots of bells and moss.
ReplyDelete