A Family Ceremony and a Garden

I was down in Richmond yesterday for a family event, the dedication of a bench at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in memory of my father and stepmother. My father had three children and remarried to a woman with six, so it's quite a clan. The photos above show the assembled attendees and then me with my two siblings.

The Garden is a great place, with many lovely spaces and views 

and great greenhouses full of tropical delights.

View across the lake toward the Treehouse and the Children's Garden.

flowers.

And one of the many lovely Mexican-style animals installed around the grounds for an event that also included music that got me dancing down the paths.

First Flowers of Spring

I don't know these folks manage to grow crocuses; deer eat mine down to the ground as fast as they come up, and I never see a flower. But I was thrilled to see these today.

The Stolen Lily

Last fall I explored an old house site in the Virginia woods, probably abandoned around the time of the Civil War. Growing near the stone house foundation I found a small cluster of blackberry lilies. I wondered if they could possibly have survived on the site for so long, so I asked my paleoethnobotanist friend. She said, absolutely, and she sent me a link to a study of a garden abandoned in the late 1700s where several old ornamental plants were still growing. So this little colony of lilies might have been more than 150 years old.

Since this spot was slated to become a factory within a few years, I dug up three corms and took them home to plant in my garden. One of them survived the winter, and it is now blooming. So this stubborn colony lives on in a new place.

Villa d'Este

The Neptune Fountain

The Villa d'Este – the one at Tivoli near Rome, that is; there are a bunch of Este villas – has one of the world's most famous gardens. The house is also sort of famous, or at least the paintings are, but it is the gardens that occupy a big space in our imagination of the Renaissance.

The Hall of Glory

The house was commissioned by Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este (1509–1572), a younger son from the famous Estes of Ferrara. We hear that Cardinal d'Este wanted to be the Governor of Tivoli because it gave him the chance to oversee the excavations at Hadrian's famous villa and get his hands on any statues or other antiquities that turned up. 

Once he had the job, Cardinal d'Este set about building himself a suitable house and garden. The work was supervised by architect-engineer Alberto Galvani, court architect of the Este, but I haven't found any information on who actually designed the garden.

The Oval Fountain

Wikipedia:

The vast construction site required the demolition of houses, public buildings and roads. In 1568 the local residents filed twelve different lawsuits against the Cardinal, but did not deter him from his project. Between 1563 and 1565, a huge amount of earth was excavated and used to construct new terraces; arcades, grottos, niches, and nymphaeums. The nearby river Aniene was diverted to furnish water for the complex system of pools, water jets, channels, fountains, cascades and water games. The steep slope of the garden, more than 45 metres (148 ft) from top to bottom, posed special challenges. Canals were dug and 200 metres (660 ft) of underground pipes were laid to carry the water from the artificial mountain under the oval fountain to the rest of the garden. Following the aesthetic principles of the Renaissance, the garden was carefully divided into regular units, or compartments, each 30 metres (98 ft) across, laid out along a longitudinal median axis, with five lateral axes.

Plan of the estate

The newly restored Grotto of Diana

Fountain of the Owl

The One Hundred Fountains

View of the garden by Piranesi

What an astonishing place

Lotusland

Lotusland is a remarkable, 37-acre garden in Montecito, California mostly created by mid-twentieth century Polish opera singer, Ganna Walska. 

The house, a classic of California Hispanic, was designed in 1915 by Reginald Johnson.

Part of the property was a nursery in the 1890s, and some of the older trees (like the palms at top and this dragon tree) date to that time.

The garden is structured around a series of themes: Japanese garden, 

fern garden, 

cycad garden, 

cactus garden, 

aloe garden,

water garden, and more. Seems like an amazing place. But if you go, be sure to make a reservation in advance, because admission is strictly limited. Huge photos at the garden web site.

The Pollinator Garden at Beech Hill Farm

Beech Hill Farm is an organic farm run by The College of the Atlantic, not far from our house. They have a store that sells their wonderful produce and various other Maine things. And out front, this garden.