Serenity in the Garden

I just took my morning walk and enjoyed the light green leaves unfurling on the trees .... The trees come alive here in the first weeks of May where I live. This is why May Day and the Maypole celebration are so appealing to me. The tradition of Dancing around the Maypole   is a true Springtime ritual and has its roots in ancient history. 1919 Magazine Cover The ancient Romans honored their god, Attis, on March 22  by wrapping a sacred pine tree in linen and violets. They then carried it in a procession to the hilltop temple of Cybele, and, after solemn observance, celebrated merrily and placed bits of wool on the tree.  Sale Elementary School and their Maypole When the Romans occupied the British Isles. they brought this Springtime festival with them. According to E. O. James' description, the Attis ceremony was recreated by the youths in old Europe who cut down a tree, l...

This is a lovely pop song about a walk through a garden by Em Pop in the UK .. click on this to hear it : The Garden 'The Garden, my favorite place to be....' Em Pop writes:   I was highly influenced by some of the greatest singer/songwriters and   bands of the 60’s.   As soon as I was given my first keyboard when I was 10 years old I started   making up melodies and pop songs galore!   In 1993 we moved to France and I attended The British School Of Paris.   We lived near Versailles for three years then moved back to Hertfordshire,   UK.  

I teach a graduate Landscape Design Studio at Columbia University.  I ask my students to select an excerpt from the assigned book, 'The Hidden Dimension' and correlate a personal experience to describe it. This is what a student, Yuji Yamazaki, an architect, wrote. It is a very enlightening piece!   ...I had to share. (He said it was ok.) “We learn from the study of culture that the patterning of perceptual world is a function not only of culture but of relationship, activity, and emotion.  Therefore, people from different cultures, when interpreting each other’s behavior, often misinterpret the relationship, the activity, or the emotion.  This leads to alienation in encounters or distorted communications.” ~ Edward T. Hall, Hidden Dimension I have been living with my girlfriend for over 5 years now. My girlfriend, born and raised in the Long Island, NY,  sees certain things in a way that I don’t quite understand, esp...

  The White Garden in Lewisboro, NY opened its gates for one day today...and oh, what a day it was! Every April, Shelby White kicks off the Open Days garden-touring season by inviting all garden lovers to visit her phenomenal 45-acre woodland estate in the lower Hudson Valley.   I walked in and gasped - there are nearly 750,000 daffodils scattered among the rolling oak-hickory woods and mulched pathways. The view was breathtaking. And then I noticed that the fellow handing out maps of the extensive grounds was none other than Patrick Chassé, eminent landscape designer! That was when I realized that this garden was going to be even more than a magnificent daffodil display. Patrick was as gracious as ever and told me not to miss the formal grounds around the house, the moss garden, and to check out the grotto. He also said that this is the best year for daffodils that we have had in about 8 years. And the timing was perfect - the daffs were in full bloom ...

The Crosby Botanic Arboretum the proud owner of a Mississippi Landmark.  It is a 'symmetrical shed' (as described by its designer) set on a base of brick, surrounded by trees and facing out to a still lake.  It is the  Pinecote Pavilion and was designed by the Arkansas architect, E. Fay Jones in 1987. He was a master in the true sense of the word. He died in 2004. Jones' Pavilion is an inspired piece of architecture.... Imagine being asked to design a open air garden pavilion for an arboretum in Mississippi, and instead of the normal gazebo or pergola, you take it upon yourself to design a soaring, captivating open air structure that seems to float on the water. In a way, it is very much like the ancient Golden Pavilion  of Kyoto (Kinkaku-ji). But the true inspiration was 'a higher order' as Jones described in a radio interview in 1994. "I like to think of myself as being concerned with a higher order of things and pro...

As we all know, gardens are a contrivance. Designed landscapes are artifice. Gardens are a grand collaboration, a co-creative endeavor with a certain Ms. Nature. Our partnership is an unequal one, for sure, as we are simply intruding on her domain, seeking to improve what is inarguably a perfect system. With that said, I look to Mother Nature for inspiration and guidance. She never fails to renew and replenish. Toward that end, each year I camp at the Audubon Society's Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary in South Wellfleet, Massachusetts for about a week amidst 1,100 acres of sandy pitch pine woodlands, meadows, maple and beech forest, salt marsh and fresh water ponds. This gem fronts onto Wellfleet Bay where naturalists volunteer to explain the wonders of the natural world to any who show up. I get recharged here. Cape Cod, which juts out into the Atlantic Ocean more than any other place in the United States, is the world's largest glacially f...