I spent last week in Pretoria, South Africa, trying to find out why I have ringing in my ears. Pretty much as I expected, there was no real answer.
I came away with a lot of MRI images of the inside of my head and these snapshots of the beautiful huge palm trees of Venning Park, next to the American Embassy.
I wish I could have also captured the lovely silky quality of Pretoria’s early winter light.
Tomorrow: Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day, hosted by May Dreams Gardens.
The view from Catherine de’ Medici’s* study at Chateau de Chenonceau.
Staying in France a little longer: The city of Lyon has two excellent museums located side-by-side on the Rue de la Charité in the Presqu’île area.
The Decorative Arts Museum is housed in the Hôtel de Lacroix Laval, built by Jacques Germain Soufflot in 1739.
Its windows overlook a small traditional parterre — or would, were they not covered by protective shades and gorgeous silk drapes.
The boxwood hedges are laid out in concentric triangles, punctuated by clipped balls. Ivy fills the centers, and acuba is planted at either end of the space.
Inside, the museum displays beautiful complete rooms of paneling, lighting, and furniture taken from 18th c. French residences, as well as ceramics and silver.
Next door, The Textile Museum exhibits clothing, tapestries, and carpets — from ancient Egypt and Asia to modern France.
I nearly had a religious experience in its gallery of silk Persian garden carpets hung against deep gray walls.
While I was in the garden, I also remembered the triangular patterns in the Rwandan Royal Palace garden in Nyanza.
Chateau of Courances, Seine-et-Marne, France. Plane trees along canal, summer 1925, by Frances Benjamin Johnson, who used the image in her lecture, “Old World Gardens.”
When we visited Paris in the first days of spring, the edges of the pleached trees on the Champ de Mars were still razor sharp.
Located between the Eiffel Tower and the Ecole Militaire, the park was named for the Campus Martius — ‘Mars Field’ — in ancient Rome, which was dedicated to the god of war. (Click any photo to enlarge it.)
In the 18th and 19th centuries, the lawns were used for military marching and drilling. They were opened to the public just before the French revolution.
In the 16th century, the space had been part of an area was called Grenelle and was set aside for market gardening plots.
The trees are London plane trees, Platinus x acerifolia (or x hispanica). In France, they are called platane à feuille d’érable (maple leaf plane tree).
Below, you can see how the park’s gardeners keep them sheared, thanks to the blog Pattersons in Paris.
enclos*ure 