10 BEAUTIFUL GREEN GARDENS RIGHT NOW
This week we are celebrating Beautiful Favorites. The BN team put together a selection of some of our favorite Daily Fix posts, pulled from the BN Archives. Here’s one we especially love from the BN Place Time Collection. They are beyond beautiful green places to find peaceful moments.
Today we are celebrating 10 Beautiful Green gardens that you can visit right now. It’s all about moss, ferns, bamboo, and leafy greens today.
1. ABBY ALDRICH ROCKEFELLER GARDEN
Landscape architect Beatrix Farrand’s philosophy of garden design emphasized native plants and the integration of existing natural landscapes. And while impressionistic swaths of delphiniums, foxgloves, and other brightly colored flowers will grab your eye in Farrand’s gardens, it is her eye for green that is especially wonderful.
The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden, which Farrand designed for the Rockefeller family in Seal Harbor, on Mount Desert Island, Maine, is an exquisite study in Beautiful Green. With the prolific carpets of lush green mosses, fringed by ferns and sculpted by stepping stones and tree roots, this garden is a verdant paradise.
There is a green rectangle of meticulously groomed turf, laid out like a picnic blanket, surrounded by frilly old-fashioned tall flower borders. A stone wall surrounds, to create a rather secret garden oasis tucked within a magical forest.
This is a private garden that's open to the public, by reservation only, just a few days a year.
2. BRECON BEACONS WATERFALLS
Ireland is more famous for its Beautiful Green, but Wales is an impressive green land. One spot, in particular, peacefully promotes a gorgeous green experience -- the Brecon Beacons National Park, within the Forest Fawr, in Carmarthenshire County, where you can enjoy the highest concentration of waterfalls in all of Wales.
Two rivers plunge down the gorges. One disappears into a large cave. It is a perfect microclimate for green mosses, ferns, and green regalia.
3. TENRYU JI GARDENS
Tenryu-Ji Garden is a remarkable green space at the Rinzai Buddhism Temple in Arashiyama, on the western outskirts of Kyoto. The garden was first finished in 1344 and was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1994
The Hyakkaen Garden at the northern temple, is filled with flowers, but it leads to a beautiful massive green bamboo walkway.
4. TOFUKU-JI GARDEN
The Abbot’s Hall, or Hojo, at Tokufu-ji, is home to four gardens designed by landscape sculptor Shigemori Mirei in 1939. In one garden, moss covered mounds represent five sacred mountains.
Tofukuji’s Northern Garden is a checkerboard of alternating stone and moss squares.
5. CARNARVON NATIONAL PARK
The gorges in Carnarvon Gorge National Park, in Central Queensland, Australia, were carved out of sandstone, over millions of years, by the Carnarvon Creek. Waterfalls and secret pools remain, continuing their natural sculpting.
The green scenery is stunning -- thick with mosses, ferns, palms, and native trees. Check out the Moss Garden waterfall, which tumbles over the rocks into a pool surrounded by moss covered sandstone walls.
6. KENROKU- EN GARDEN
Kenroku-en (兼六園, Six Attributes Garden), located in Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan, is an old private garden. Along with Kairaku-en and Koraku-en, Kenroku-en is one of the Three Great Gardens of Japan.
The garden was developed from the 1620s to the 1840s, going through a number of expansions, restorations and embellishments. The Emerald Waterfall (Midori-taki) was created by the 11th lord Harunaga in 1744.
The garden’s name was derived from the Chronicles of the Famous Luoyang Gardens (洛陽名園記), a book by the Chinese poet Li Gefei (李格非), and stands for the six attributes of a perfect landscape: spaciousness, seclusion, artifice, antiquity, waterways, and panoramas.
The garden covers 114,436.65 m² (over 25 acres). It includes over 8,750 trees, and 183 species of plants in total. And, it contains the oldest fountain in Japan, operating by natural water pressure.
7. LOST GARDENS OF HELIGAN
The Lost Gardens of Heligan became lost after World War I. They sit pretty on 200 acres in Cornwall, UK, after being restored in the 1990’s, and are now quite productive, with over 200 varieties of fruits, vegetables, and herbs.
High green bamboo tunnels are perfect for midday strolls. But perhaps the most special parts of these gardens, are the Mud Maiden and Giant’s Head, two giant living sculptures made of plants, mud, and rock.
Sit beneath the tall green historic rhododendron boughs of Sikkim check out the Maori-carved tree ferns, the ornate Italian Garden, and Alpine inspired green ravine. There’s ancient woodland and jungle to explore as well.
8. VILLA D’ESTE GARDEN
The Villa D’Este Garden, which rises up from the banks of the Lago di Como, in Italy, is an elaborate, over-the-top, eden. Terraced green lawns are accessed by a dramatic central stairway.
The “railings” are mini moss-lined aqueducts that gently carry continuous rivulets of water from the top to feed grottoes, pools, fishponds, and fountains, strategically set into the steep hillside.
The water is supplied by the Aniene, which is partly diverted through the town. The cascades terminate at the water organ and the Fountain of Neptune.
The garden is now part of the Grandi Giardini Italiani, an association of the most important gardens in Italy.
9. JARDIN MAJORELLE
The Jardin Majorelle, in Marrakech, Morooco, is a beautiful play of green, with cobalt blue accents. It was owned by Yves Saint Laurent, the legendary fashion designer.
Created in the 1920s by painter Jacques Majorelle, the garden has been named one of 50 Most Beautiful Gardens in the World.
10. YUYUAN GARDEN
Yuyuan Garden is tucked away inside Yuyuan -- it is a garden inside Yu Gardens. It is the most complete classical garden in Shanghai, dating back to the Ming dynasty. The garden is comprised of six sections.
Yuyuan contains a large rock garden the “Chamber of the Ten Thousand Flowers,” which overflows with many tens of thousands of green plants.
Each green section is divided by a beautiful undulating wall, made to look like a dragon’s back, capped with a dragon’s head.
Read more about Beautiful Favorites, as it relates to Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact including 10 Gorgeous New Books on Fruits, See the Invisible Beauty of Little Wings, Exquisite Edible Geometry and Sky as Impressionist Painter Now.
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IMAGE CREDITS:
- Image: by JR P. A Rainy Visit to the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden in Seal Harbor, Maine.
- Image: by Synwell. Scwd Einon Gam, Afon Pyrddin, South Wales. Brecon Beacons Waterfalls, South Wales.
- Image: by Trey Ratcliff. The Bamboo Forest. Arashiyama Garden in TenryuJi Garden. Kyoto, Japan.
- Photo: by sigusr0. Tofuku-ji Moss Garden. Kyoto, Japan.
- Photo: Courtesy of Gypsy’s Blog. Carnarvon National Park, Central Queensland, Australia.
- Image: by Endroit. Kenroku-en garden. Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan.
- Photo: by Tad at Soler7. Kenroku-en Garden. Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan.
- Photo: by Patche99z. Lost Gardens of Heligan. Mud Maiden.Cornwall, UK.
- Photo: By Dani of Hunting in Heels. Villa D’Este Gardens.
- Photo: By Dani of Hunting in Heels. Villa D’Este Gardens. Lago di Como, Italia.
- Image: by Sarah Karlson. Jardin Majorelle. Marrakech, Morocco.
- Photo: by Wolfgang Staudt. Yuyuan Garden. Shanghai, China.
- Photo: by Jamie Butler. Tofuku-ji Moss Garden. Kyoto, Japan.
- Image: Courtesy of BeautifulNow. BN App.
- Image: Courtesy of BeautifulNow. BN App.
- Image: Courtesy of BeautifulNow. BN App.
