Magic in the Gardens

At the end of the last post I noted the Sustainable Garden presentation at the Hamilton Gardens just five minutes away by bike. Ginny had told me about it so I added it in the blog and then thought some pictures would be nice and I went off to see it. My head was so blown away by my garden adventure that I decided to leave the last post alone and save my further reflections for this one. Ginny had told me the gardens were amazing, but of course seeing is believing. The Sustainable Backyard garden was superb, lots of displays on backyard aquaculture, composting, crop rotation, etc. The whole thing is maintained by the Hamilton Permaculture Society and provides a wonderful demo and model of what can be grown in a small backyard for the whole city to see, and believe me, the whole city sees it. The parking lots were overflowing and people were everywhere— all ages and cultures. A pack of four year olds was watching the chickens and running in circles all about. Teens were hanging out on the paths and twenty somethings were walking about in couples and clumps. Then there were us older folks, a mother and a 14 year old, and some that were significantly older than me! There were anglo Kiwis, women in saris and a good dose of Chinese. These gardens were not just for the snooty but the preserve of all sorts of people— the whole commuity. It did not take long to figure out why.

The gardens are pure magic, the best interpretive environmental education centre I have ever been in, though that was not explicitly the intention. Around every corner was a new garden ecosystem with greenery, water forms, statues that drew you in and evoked surprise, wonder and beauty. There were no plant name tags, only one or two simple descriptive signs for each large garden with no images on them. The clear message was that the gardens would speak for themselves, and each garden was a snapshot of a particular place and time, portraying that culture’s philosophy and view of nature and beauty. They present each garden as a story, and everyone knows I am a sucker for stories. Sure enough, the Sustainable Backyard was there because of its educational mission, but it was also there because represented an important 21^st century philosophical view of nature. 

So here are some pictures of just a few angles on of the gardens… and remember this is free all year round, and supported by a city half the size of Halifax. Whoever designed the gardens had to have read the famous architectural design book called "Pattern Language", because they have every basic principle of good architectural design I could think of built in. The sign for the Chinese scholars garden is the only interpretation in that garden. When I read it, my next thought is I want to go see it!

Then you look up... and who would not be a sucker for this entrance. It was amazing inside but my camera could not do it justice...

Here is the short intro to the 17th century Mogul garden...

And here is the garden!

The Japanese dry zen garden.

And so with all this beauty, how did they get the expoitation of nature as a commodity across as a contrast to the Sustainable Backyard? There is nothing better than a 1950s California American garden...

So several hours evaporated quickly as I wandered about and sat in various places taking it in. Fittingly a blue kingfisher was catching minnows in the Zen water garden, a unique New Zealand kingfisher... most all the birds in New Zealand are unique. Ultimately, it was time to head home for supper so out to the parking lot I went to fetch my bike... but then there were a whole mess of white tents across from the parking lot. The sign said Haka... What could this be? In I went and it quickly became apparent that the wild adventures in the Gardens were not anywhere near being done... but that must wait for the next post.