Ready and waiting in the fog for the first boat to St. Michael's Mount. The first two trips are for employees only. Mike and I are the first ones on the third boat. The weather is not cold, just lacking in any visibility. We are setting off for an unseeable destination. Deciding to see the gardens first, like the over zealous travelers we are, first in line, first through the gate, first to make a wrong turn. Following the rough cobblestone path up, up, up the hill Mike says, "Where were the gardens?" My reply, "Look at all these beautiful trees and plantings." As usual Mike was correct and we arrive at the castle door without having seen the gardens and are invited in as the first visitors of the day. Interesting self guided tour without any crowds. The posted pictures are of the library, always my favorite room.
Hiking back down the hill we came to the castle entrance. When I enquired about getting to the garden, the attendant knew all about us. They had had a call from the garden entry booth that the first guests of the day had gone astray. We were now infamous and accounted for. Up we trekked to the gardens. The color themes and visual effects are so beautifully planned. On this damp and foggy day all of the subtropical plants seem out of place but add so much color to the landscape.
With the tide in, we boarded a boat at the sea wall. Several hours later the tide was receding and the boats could not go all of the way to shore. Of course, a clever solution, that creates more access and more monetary income. We disembarked on one side of a large craggy rock, walked up one side and down the other. This put us on a stone path that had appeared out of the sea so that we could walk to the sea wall where tour buses were disembarking dozens of people who would have lengthy waits to cross the water.
Several months ago while researching the top gardens of Great Britain I read about the Lost Gardens of Heligan. This very large garden was connected to a family estate. During the First World War most of the gardeners went to war and lost their lives. Over the following decades the gardens were untended, overgrown, and forgotten. In the 1990's a group of dedicated garden lovers began to research from photos, excavate from digging, and resurrect as accurately as possible the gardens. Many original plants were still there hiding in the wreckage of fallen out buildings, greenhouses and overgrowth. Today it is a remarkably large and beautiful space. There are rhododendrons with trunks the size of trees, that are as tall as houses, with branches forming a vast umbrella of cover as much as seventy five feet in diameter. Furthermore, they were all apparently grown from seeds imported more than a century ago. I stood there in awe.
The most unusual garden is the jungle garden. Again there are acres of subtropical plants surrounding a series of four descending pools linked by interconnecting streams. Many plants were imported as early as the late 1700's. Growing among them are the native plants that we expect in England or in Oregon. The growth is so dense I cannot imagine how gardeners could get to plants to tend them. Perhaps that is what jungle means. No tending, just hacking down the plants that obscure the pathways. Could that work on NE 26th?
Remnants of the old tool room
There was so much more to the gardens. . . Bees, vegetables, dovecotes, sheep, goats, chickens, enormous black ducks, geese, lawns, a well, a hidden grotto . . . If I lived here we would have a membership to visit and see the gardens in all seasons of the year.
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