GardenBook

  I don't recall when I first read about Madoo, but I would guess it was a magazine article or perhaps a review of 'Notes From Madoo' , Robert Dashes' book published in 2000. How I wanted to visit , but at that time in my life it seemed quite impossible. But opportunities sometimes present themselves and this summer my friends and I stepped through the portal into a garden I  thought I would never see.   Visiting dozens of gardens every year puts you in a position of  discernment. It's easy to be disappointed when the garden toured  lands under the ever-rising bar. The more gardens , the higher the bar climbs. As grateful as I am for the existence of the venerable Garden Conservancy, there are invariably  duds on Open Days .Sometimes the garden is just not to my taste, sometimes it's just not that great--and how subjective our vision of gardens is! These gardens all belong to someone,  someone loves them, cares for them or hires someone to do so . As ...

My camera malfunctioned at the end of day one , Garden Bloggers Fling . I have added the point-and-shoot to the Permanent Electronics Packing List . It was somewhat liberating to be camera-less for 2 days of garden touring, but now that I have been liberated once, I don't care to be so again. Thanks to Alison at Bonney Lassie who did in fact have the forethought to pack an extra camera , and kindly allowed me to borrow it for Saxon Holts' photo workshop on Saturday morning. Are there any people better than gardeners ? How splendid it would be if we ruled the world.  The point here is that I was unable to take images at The Hall of Flowers in San Francisco so I am reverting to the previous weekends visit to New York -my camera was fully operational at the Planting Fields Arboretum , and this is my substitute conservatory gig.Over the years I've visited a fair number of conservatory facilities, and it seemed that they were uniformly dusty and ill-maintained spaces , full...

  There has been a frenetic pace this June , visiting gardens from coast to coast . Denise and I speculated on the Fling bus Saturday...were we 'gardened -out' ? Just a little I think, though the freak heat-wave may have been a contributing factor. Just for the hell of it I totted up the numbers : 11 gardens on the east coast starting the 19th , fly home on Monday the 24th, go to work for a couple of days , and then 13 more gardens over the weekend in the Bay Area. Whew ! Looks like Sue up there ...  ...taking a photo of this...  The walled garden featured classic perennial borders , and hardscape I can only dream of. My travel companions taking in the views.   The childrens garden was tastefully cute . How about a folly and a lake in your back yard?  Not in the budget this year I'm afraid. Old Westbury Gardens is in Old Westbury New York, on Long Island.