Gardens and nurseries

A zen garden in Kyoto, Japan

A few years back, a trip to the nursery would not even have crossed my mind. I have often been on these trips with my grandparents, since my grandfather was very proud of his garden and was always looking for new and innovative ways to change it up. We have been to a few nurseries together, even through his old age, and he has carefully selected plants for his garden to use at the entry way, pond area, rockery and around his lawn.

On a recent trip to India, we were going on a family visit with my grandmother, and she did the same. My grandfather has since passed, and my grandmother has now taken over with the plants. It was nice to visit the nursery, and my husband helped carry the plants back to the car. My husband is very knowledgeable about plants and trees in general, having grown up in the countryside in his home country in western Europe. His mother still maintains a garden in her current home, and we spend a lot of time talking about the plants when visiting, sharing pictures and preparing confitures with the various fruits in season (most often apricots for us).

Our last home had a lot of fruit trees, but since it was a rental I think I did not get mentally invested in the garden. We had a vegetable garden for a couple of years from where we got fresh tomatoes, strawberries, butternut squash, and carrots. We had a herb garden with mint, coriander, basil, rosemary, thyme and laurel leaves. We also had a lot of fruit trees to maintain, including grapes, oranges, tangerines, apricots, and plums.

Our current home does not have very many fruit trees, unfortunately. However, it has a beautiful garden which we simply fell in love with and a lot of space. We have 4 gorgeous redwood trees, a nice expanse of lawn, and the best part is that the entire garden is visible and accessible from most of the house. We really love this garden. It has a small pond and fountain at one corner and a few rose bushes along the other wall. We have a peach tree that gave us a crateful of peaches this year. We recently planted our own basil plants, rosemary, lavender and lantana flowers. I am constantly on the look out for new plants to add to our garden.

For our son’s birthday, we are having a garden party and are considering gifting potted plants as party favors. This may not be too well liked by the children but we hope that they turn out to be more useful than some of the other items we might have chosen for them. So we went on a trip to the nursery this morning, and enjoyed our small outing there. We liked the perennials and will be looking into the idea a little more to see if we can buy ten small plants for the party.

Back home, I have a close family member who is also starting up a nursery as a business venture and I am very excited to see it come into fruition. This family member is very talented and has the vision and dedication to make it into a success. I am grateful to be able to have a garden, as well as people in my life who share the passion, knowledge and interest in gardening. It makes me feel so very fortunate.

My enjoyment of traveling and greenery have taken me to many botanic gardens around the world. Some of the gardens I have had the pleasure of visiting are:

Lalbagh botanical gardens, Bangalore
Botanical Gardens and Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate park, San Francisco
Jardins de Coursiana, France
Gardens at Schoenbrunn Schloss, Vienna
Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, Melbourne
City Botanic Gardens, Brisbane
Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney
Gardens at Golden temple, Silver temple and Kiyomizu in Kyoto
Gardens at Nikko, Japan
Hakone Gardens, Saratoga, CA
Gardens of Manor House in Castlecombe, UK
Singapore Botanical Gardens
Gardens by the Bay, Singapore

On that note, I’ll leave you with a link to Bowie’s “Moss Garden”, which is only fitting because

-       We love love LOVE Bowie

-       The song is described to have tranquil and ethereal sounds

-       Bowie plays a koto, a Japanese string instrument that sounds like a mellow version of a banjo

-       We like Japanese gardens, and were ooh-ing and aah-ing over Japanese lanterns we saw at the local nursery only this morning, reminiscing about our trip to Japan when we were marveling at them in the zen gardens of Kyoto.

-       My grandfather enjoyed his visit to Japan very much and was always talking about it and the gardens there.

Moss Garden from the album “Heroes” by David Bowie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alSfXV_hnT4