Do you have an amazing garden?

Your amazing garden may be a potted plant on a windowsill, a planter on your balcony, a garden bed in your backyard, or a host of golden daffodils in your neighbourhood park. Does your amazing garden make you feel happy? 

My amazing garden is a few herbs that I throw in a small bed in the front of the house. The smell and taste of summer is a fresh-picked herb.

I love visiting public gardens when we travel. I love to see how someone imagined a garden from a plot of earth. What kind of space did the designer imagine? A place of tranquility and reflection? A place to showcase the latest technology in horticulture? A place to display wealth?

The Naples Botanical Garden is more than a space to display flowers and plants. It is a community garden, a destination on a Sunday morning. Families, dog walkers and yogis shared and enjoyed this amazing community space on a Sunday morning.

A generous $5 million donation provided funding to purchase 170 acres three miles from downtown Naples. How would you design a garden on the outskirts of a beautiful coastal town in Florida?

What would you do with a spare $5 million dollars? Would you create a public garden?

Here is the link to the Naples Botanical Garden: https://www.naplesgarden.org/

Do you like water gardens?

The Naples Garden has a lovely water garden. It reminds me of Monet’s waterlily paintings.

I like water features in public gardens. Water makes a beautiful backdrop for flowers. I don’t like water features in my own garden. Too much mud and murkiness.

Water gardens need to be weeded

I don’t mind weeding my garden. But I don’t want to wear hip-waders to do the weeding.

Do you have a sculpture in your amazing garden?

Some people like garden gnomes. Some like windcatchers. Some like chimes.

Do you like this turtle shell?

I love this amazing smiling turtle. Now I have an idea for all those shells I collected on Sanibel Island.

This is my favourite sculpture in the Naples Garden

These animals are having so much fun. That mama kangaroo is absolutely joyous. Wouldn’t you love to hold those hands and join in?

The dinosaur sculptures are not joyous

There was a dinosaur exhibit in the Naples Garden. Very large, animated dinosaurs were displayed in the children’s garden. Some spat water as you approached. The dinosaurs were interesting and fun but did not instil peace and tranquility.

What is scarier? A big dinosaur sculpture or a big dog with big teeth?

Normally I avoid big dogs. But this dog is the kindest, gentlest, calmest big dog you could ever imagine. His name is Nash. He is a rescue dog. He was cross and aggressive when he was rescued. It took the owner a full year to socialize Nash and train him to be calm and gentle. He was perfectly obedient. He sat still so that I could take a photo.

You can do Sunday yoga in the Naples Garden

If you are not a dog walker or a dinosaur lover, you can join the yoga class.

A yoga class is a great way to utilize a public space.

You can visit the butterfly pavilion in the Naples Garden

Monarch butterflies are amazing

Monarchs are year-round residents in Florida. They are not migratory. We have the migratory species in Canada. Just like the snowbirds, they head south for the winter.

The migration of the monarch butterfly is known as “one of the most spectacular natural phenomena is the world.” In the fall, monarch migrate from Canada to  Mexico. They start the return trip in March, arriving back in Canada around July. No individual butterfly completes the entire round trip; At least four generations are involved in the annual cycle.

I need the kind of GPS that monarchs have. They are born knowing where to go and how to get there.

The Naples Garden has a beautiful orchid garden

The Naples Garden has sculptures and dinosaurs and butterflies. It also has beautiful flowers.

I almost missed these spectacular blooms because I was focused on something else

Sometimes when you are looking at something in the distance, you are surprised and amazed by something that is right in front of you.

If you have been following this blog, you know that I find gardens very interesting. I like to think about the vision and purpose of a garden. Below are highlights of earlier garden posts to see how the garden was imagined.

The first garden to re-visit is Monet’s garden.

Monet imagined a garden that he wanted to paint.

http://boomervoice.ca/giverny-experience-monet-giverny-paris/

Monet spent years planting his painted garden

The next garden to re-visit is Keukenhof, just outside Amsterdam.

Keukenhof is a showcase for Dutch Floriculture. Tulips are big business in the Netherlands. The history, culture and economy of the Netherlands is expressed in millions of tulips in Keukenhof.

Keukenhof is only open in spring, when 7 million bulbs are in bloom

The next garden to re-visit is Generalife in Spain.

Generalife was designed as an opulent display of wealth and power.

http://boomervoice.ca/generalife-world-heritage-site-a-thousand-and-one-year-old-garden/

The Moor revolutionized gardens with their technology in irrigation

The next garden to re-visit is actually a whole country: Singapore

Singapore calls itself the City in a Garden. Here are links to two posts on Singapore’s gardens:

There are amazing gardens on your window sill, in your yard, and in your parks.

If spring ever arrives in Toronto, I will be able to see some amazing gardens in my neighbourhood