Your Favorite Garden
 

I love Botanical Gardens, Community Gardens, Parks, and home gardens. I'm a sucker for sanctuaries, forests, and state parks as well. Formal or informal in design, I love seeing plants, their flowers, and the occasional moss, lichen, or fungus.

I've seen many beautiful gardens in my lifetime, but there are so many more that I would like to visit. I spent several days/week at the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden while I was in school. During a study abroad in Paris I visited the gardens at Versailles nearly every Sunday. Now in Ohio there aren't as many gardens as there are trails and wild areas. There's a different, haphazard sort of beauty to these young forests that I've begun to find irresistable.


Share with me your plant-filled experiences!
Where is your favorite garden?
Have you visited any one garden on a regular basis to see it shift with the seasons?

The gardens in Ohio are the farms in between cities. I have a garden at my house as well.

The Sydney Botanical Gardens are my favorite with lots of different plants, and a great view of the city.

(Did you move to Ohio?)

Yep! I've been in Ohio since January.

I wish I could have a garden at my house. We have a few potted vegetables in our apartment which my rabbit loves to nibble.

I loved the jungle in the Philippines. While I was in Philippines, my mom and I walked around a jungle and found a woman living in a tin and wood box. She had coconuts set beside her. She sold us a bunch and cut a few open for us and we drank the juice. Sooooo, good. the coconuts were still fresh and bright green.

The jungle was gorgeous.. there were farms placed randomly and I got to pet a caribou at one of the farms. We were almost right by the coast, too so from one of the roads heading towards the shore that was still in the countryside, i was surrounded by beautiful scenery overlooking the ocean. It was very nice.


Big Sur is also a very beautiful place. Going past the Hearst castle you can see zebras running around freely along with sheep and cows and other animals right along the shore. They must live such a nice life.

I haven't been to many, but I was particularly enchanted by Butchart Gardens near Victoria, B.C. on Vancouver Island. The most notable feature to me was the "Sunken Mound Garden."

Behold:
http://i170.photobucket.com/albums/u...3YRAvcv_fs.jpg

Butchart Gardens has been on my list of to-see-gardens for a while. Good to hear someone not affiliated with a tourist book recommending it!

Descanso Gardens and the Huntington Library Gardens are neck-and-neck for my favorite gardens in the Los Angeles, California area.

No question: the Huntington gardens, at the grounds of the Huntington Library and Museum, just outside Pasadena, in San Marino, CA. They have at least a dozen different micro-ecosystems and ordered gardens there, all gorgeous, all delightful to walk through. They don't allow cellphones, audible radios or music players, or flash photography, which means it's just you and the sounds of nature and people enjoying it.

Damn world travelers!

I don't travel much. So I just have my own garden outside. Mainly pots as they're easier to maintain (no weeds.) I have moonflowers, morning glories, ferns, elephant ears, basil, sage, lavender, rosemary, coleus, snapdragons, callas and sweet potato vines.

This probably doesn't qualify, but I'm going to share anyway.

When I was younger I used to hike in the Smoky Mountains near Pigeon Forge, TN. There was one particular trail that after about 2 hours ended in the most spectacular waterfall. On the other side was a breathtaking view of the mountains. If it was fall, you could see all the leaves, or spring, different patches or sprin flowers. Hiking there still holds some of my fondest memories.

Not formal gardens, but stunning nature.

The International Rose Test Garden in Portland, OR:

http://www.travelportland.com/visito...ose_garden.jpg
http://conferences.sigcomm.org/sigco...TestGarden.jpg
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...garden.395.jpg

It has one of the best views of Portland and more roses than I've ever seen in one location. I will go there on the flimsiest excuse anytime I'm in that neck of the woods. I'd love to get married there, but it's a little far, so we're looking at my second-favorite garden as a possible location:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/members...-rose-arch.jpg
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/members...-rose-arch.jpg