If you are wondering where I wandered off to, I’ve been busy noticing all the non-garden things happening in the world. I began to doubt the need for garden stories. Then I had lunch with dear friends in our garden, and they urged me to rethink that idea. Now, maybe more than ever, we all need to be reminded of the beautiful green magic moments in the world. In 2025, I had innumerable such moments. Traveling by air, coach, river boat, ocean ship, ferry, bus, rental car, tram and foot we visited gardens in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Estonia, Serbia, Croatia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Poland, Germany, Austria, Belgium, and England. Oh, and I visited gardens in southern Indiana while on a speaking tour. This travel kept us packing and unpacking for four months, and when we arrived home, we were a bit dazed.
I now have 90 more gardens to share with you, and the more I explore, the more convinced I am that gardeners everywhere want to share their magical moments with nature. I want to start with gardens in Riga, Latvia. This tiny country borders Russia and is north of Ukraine.
We toured Riga with Sigita, who lived under the Soviet occupation as a child. Sigita captivated us with the stories of her love for her country, the sacrifices her parents and grandparents made during the occupation and the great joy of gaining independence from Russia in 1991. We set off for the day in her yellow Fiat Mini Cooper to explore gardens in the area.
We arrived in Turaida (a region of Latvia), and visited the Hill of Dainas Folk Song Garden, a sculpture garden carved into a forested hillside. Latvia holds a national song festival every five years. The country has an archive of 100,440 folk songs, clearly enough to keep everyone singing. This garden illustrates the cultural heritage preserved in Latvian folk songs, featuring 26 sculptures created by sculptor Indulis Ranka.
Our next stop was the Krimulda Manor house of the von Lieven family, built in the 1800s. It began serving in 1921 as a sanatorium for children’s diseases, then for tuberculosis patients, and later for World War I soldiers. Operating today as
The Krimulda Rehabilitation Center, the grand gardens surrounding the Manor House were, and remain, part of the patients’ treatment plan, with time in the sunshine for fresh air and connection with nature.
I was fascinated by the adjoining manager’s building made of walls built with boulders with arched windows, chunky rustication corners, and topped with a domed roof. Accented with flowers in the garden, it was picturesque from every angle.
Perhaps the sweetest memory happened in the AuGuste Garden, with gardener Laura Dance dressed in her ruffled pink dress, almost ready to greet her guests for a musical concert by Latvian performer Ainara Bumbiera.
I say almost ready because she had her garden gloves on and was planting just a few more petunias in the flower bed nearest the stage, wanting everything to be perfect. This is Laura’s garden, and she welcomes visitors with” Laipni lugti,” “you are welcome,” and her goal is to offer visitors joy.
The garden has over 200 hydrangeas, and many floral beds, a glass-walled pink cottage invites you in to explore. There is a gathering area with Corinthian columns framing the space, and on this day, a group of young women was enjoying a perfect blue-sky day, accented by orange lilies.
Gardens of Latvia introduced me to a proud, tiny country and a reminder of what gardeners around the world share: the need for plants, for people we love to be cared for and healthy. We want the freedom to gather, to celebrate, to honor, and to share life’s path. Traveling to gardens is the best way to discover the world.
Skyline photos of Riga, Latvia, combines the old with the new
More views of the Sculpture Garden
Architecture always surprises me and delights me.
