Went to a Garden Party

 

Normally a tour of gardens is not the first thing that comes to my mind on a Sunday morning , but anything done well can be interesting and these gardens were done very very well.  The tours were organized by Phoenix Home and Gardens and the proceeds went to the Desert Botanical Gardens.  And so with the promise of lots of sunshine, flowers and a lunch at Arcadia Farms, we set off to Paradise Valley to see the gardens.

 

Balinese Beauty

The first garden was inspired by the couples many trips to Bali.  They owners were from England and I suspect they went a little crazy in the warm Arizona sunshine. It had outdoor art work and plants set of by bold colored walls around the property.  The art work focused attention to a small part of the garden and it had literally hundreds of spots to stop and meditate.  It would have probably taken a week to really explore it.

Balinese Garden Pitures

Desert Garden

The next garden was of typical dessert flora.  The woman told us that she had been working on the garden for twenty years, which is easy to understand.  It covered two acres and had gravel paths that wandered over hill and dale.

 

Desert Garden

 

So Long Frank Lloyd Wright

 

This garden was built around a Frank Lloyd Wright style home.  In the back of the house the garden was laid out in geometric squares of lawn and concrete, but at the sides, the owners began mixing the plants with Zen gardens and by the time you got to the front, it was a desert garden growing all over hill and dale and totally void of any structure and order

 

 

Wright Garden Pictures

 

Moorish Magic

 

This house was a delight and the one I could most imagine living in.  There were courtyards with fountains and tile art work that invited contemplation.  It had arches covered with flowers and an oasis of trees at one end of the swimming pool. It would have reminded me of the Alhambra in Spain, if I had ever been to Spain.

 

Moorish Garden

 

The Other Half

It is not often that I am jealous about how the other half live, but in this case I would have been happy to live in the stone covered guest house.  The tour book described the garden as a Santa Barbara style estate, but this is a garden to entertain presidents and the occasional visiting tourists from rainy parts of the country.

 

Santa Barbara Style Garden