Showing posts with label gardens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gardens. Show all posts
Postcard from Mallorca: some enchanting gardens
Manor houses transformed into magical museums, remote hilltop monasteries boasting breathtaking views, and verdant botanic gardens providing relief from the sun have all captivated me far more on this trip than any beach resort. And yet I have to admit that I am one of those people who occasionally likes to spend a week soaking up the sun on a stunning stretch of sand somewhere, and who has secretly been dreaming of a holiday doing nothing but reading books by a hotel swimming pool. Probably because these are the very things I no longer have time to do, despite spending some 300 nights on average a year in hotel rooms. Yet most of Mallorca's beaches are too crowded for my taste and their surroundings are often marred by ugly hotel developments. A place that I found especially enchanting was the lush Jardines de Alfabia near Soller. While the gardens themselves are lovely, with their leafy walkways, tinkling fountains and tranquil ponds, it was the splendid residence that they're tangled around that once belonged to the Moorish viceroy of Mallorca, that I found even more compelling. Sumptuously decorated with rich brocaded furnishings and colossal works of art on the walls, it was one of those places that took you back in time for a while when the world was a very different place. Take a peek inside here and let me know what you think.
The garden of leafy delights: part 1
Have you ever been on a garden tour? Last weekend my aunt Tamara threw open the gate to this lovely big old Australian house she and my uncle George have renovated in Eaglehawk on the outskirts of Bendigo in the goldfields region of Victoria. It's the same house where Terry and I have been lucky to spend our time writing up the two Australian books over recent months (and where we finished writing the Cyprus and Italy books while we planned our Australian road trip last year); the same house with the rustic kitchen where Terry does so much cooking in the evenings to keep us sated and sane (the results of which you can see on his blog Wide angles, wine and wanderlust). So Tamara threw open the doors to a horticultural group - most of them quite elderly, some of them a little frail, many of them horticultural judges, all wearing hand-written name tags - so they could tour this splendid garden. She did the same last month, at the request of the president of the Eaglehawk Dahlia and Arts Festival, and she does the same every year. Two tour groups arrived that Saturday, as they did this last weekend - just to stroll the glorious garden here. They admired specific plants, and discussed whether they were 'native' or 'exotic', they appreciated the arrangement of things, pointing at one plant and then another, and they secretly snipped clippings to take home (of course I noticed) where I guess they hoped to achieve similar wondrous results. Tamara had spent a couple of days beforehand giving the garden a general tidy, pulling weeds, watering, and sweeping paths, and that morning we put the sign up the president had provided on display out front. I didn't see the need for a sign as the group were arriving on a bus organized for them. Perhaps it was simply to formalize the event? It was nothing more than an amble about a garden after all. But to the group it was obviously a special day. Tamara didn't do a lot to prepare the garden, as I said. She said they could accept it the way it was. And they did. They absolutely delighted in strolling the garden. And who wouldn't?
The garden of leafy delights: part 2
And it is an enchanting garden, in the style of those wild, romantic, 18th century, English cottage gardens that inspired the Italians to establish their elaborate, sprawling villa gardens on the Italian Lakes. From the front gate a path meanders up to the porch of the house, a pretty pond on one side that's home to frogs, a fountain and floating waterlilies, and on the other side a shimmery birch forest and beyond that another pond that's home to a handsome white duck called Ferdinand and an ever-expanding school of fish that magically appeared one day (a theory is that birds dropped the fish in on their flight past, but people in these parts always have theories). Another path leads by the side of the house, itself concealed by creeping vines, where there is another small birch forest and everywhere an abundance of greenery. Beyond this a terrace with a big glass table and charming wrought-iron chairs where we occasionally sit together and eat in the sun - generally only when there are guests and not nearly as much as we should. The whole garden is lush and leafy and fragrant, with plenty of places to sit scattered about, a bench here, chairs and tables there, a swinging seat in the corner - all made for sitting back with a glass of something to delight in this gorgeous garden. And of course, we seldom do that either. I remember being a child and playing in my grandparents' gardens, hiding beneath big hollow shrubs I'd turn into cubby houses where I could hold tea parties with my dolls, and I wished then that I'd had a garden like this with its secret spots seemingly created especially for 'hide and seek'. This garden must be heaven for small children. Just as it was to the older garden-lovers last weekend...