I’ve just returned from a three-week trip exploring Scottish Gardens. My husband and I rented a car at the Aberdeen Airport and set off for our adventure. Rich did all the 852 miles of driving with a right-hand drive and a left-hand 6-speed shifter. Our GPS guide was the calm and reassuring voice of the actress Emma Thompson, and we loved her. But it takes both of us to stay focused on driving down shady tiny “B” roads with one-lane bridges, watching out for horseback riders, cyclists, and huge farm equipment along the way.
Tag: Inspiration
Finding a Pathway Through The Plants
Finding your way forward during these times of uncertainty can be challenging. Nonstop news of floods, fires, searing heat, wild winds, and tragic wars magnify our uncertainties. I look to the garden for direction. I am ready to immerse myself in a green walk among the plants.
Flowers in the Tetons, Wyoming
The majestic mountains are so big, the sky so wide and the view in every direction is spectacular. Exploring the Grand Tetons is an experience of grand proportions. It is easy to miss the wildflowers surviving in this dry climate under a bright summer sun. Yet the flowers are there, in yellow, purple, red and white.
Trees A Visual Guide
Bookshelf space is precious ground for gardeners so I choose my volumes carefully. Trees, is a reference book supremely worth the full inch it requires! Every photograph is worth framing and clearly connected to the interesting and informative text provided alongside. The book is divided into sections including: Form & Function, Diversity and Design, Communities of Life, Trees and the Human World and the Indispensable Resource of Trees.
Pottery in the Garden
Water is essential for life; on two different occasions, once in May the other in August, I’ve found in my garden two perfectly formed tiny mud pots. These were made by a 1/2” long Microdynerus arenicolus, or the Antioch Potter Wasp. A potter’s wasp will lay its eggs inside. The female wasp gets a MOUTHFUL of water, finds some soil to mix in her mouth and builds the pot from the bottom up one mouthful at a time. Can you imagine the size of a wasp’s mouth? This variety of wasp is found in the southwest,
An Island of Flowers
In Bavaria, a land of fairytale castles, there’s a fantasy island of flowers. Mainau Island of Flowers is located on Lake Konstanz, a body of water spanning the borders of southern Germany and Switzerland. This temperate climate provides ideal growing conditions for this garden of floral beauty, fanciful creations, and unique features.
“A not good enough garden” Linderhof Palace
Linderhof Palace is nestled in the Bavarian Alps in southern Germany. King Ludwig II’s love of Versailles inspired the formal Baroque-style gardens surrounding the small palace. Versailles exerted enormous influence over European garden design, and Ludwig was determined to create his own majestic garden.
Floriade 2022–Hope for the Planet
Returning to Floriade this year was the culmination of a ten-year goal. The last one was so exciting, so beautiful, and inspiring I was determined to return.
Floriade 2022, Horticulture Celebration,The Netherlands
Once a decade, the Netherlands Horticulture Council organizes an exposition celebrating and highlighting horticulture’s contribution to life. The event is a World’s Fair of horticultural products, innovations in food production, and the beauty of plants in all forms. Participants from around the world showcase their garden style and their premium exports from their part of the planet.
Tulip Fever, Can you pick just one?
I am recovering from a fever. Tulip Fever. Seduced by their charms and captivated by their colors, petals, fringes, and the brief burst of beauty heralding the arrival of spring, I despair from the longing to possess these flowers in my garden.