I’ve been very fortunate in my life.
I’ve had some great opportunities to either hop on a plane to somewhere interesting off the continent, or do some amazing road trips around this one. And I always secretly felt that I got a little extra out of these trips because I was a gardener and naturalist by heart.
Every single plant species, the soils that they grew in and the natural habitat and climate that they thrived in did not go unnoticed, which made everywhere I went so much more interesting and fascinating for me. I was just free to observe and enjoy without looking up the Latin names and all that other stuff which makes my brain hurt.
Over the years, I’ve seen the magnificent palace gardens and flowering balconies of Europe, the desert landscapes of Morocco and the lush tropical environments and scented flowers of Hawaii and Mexico. Kenya and Tanzania offered such a wonderful variety of created and natural places. Everywhere in Nairobi, the streets were lined with beautiful bright red Flame and soft mauve Jacaranda trees, and it was there in a private garden that I saw my first 15-foot poinsettia tree and Kenya’s oldest bougainvillea plant, which had slowly wound its way up an evergreen tree, reaching a height of 60 feet with a trunk a foot wide.
We also just happened to be there for the annual orchid show, whereby the club members had recreated, inside a small building, a perfect natural environment, complete with waterfalls, fallen logs and trickling streams. That was the first and only time I have ever breathed in the heavenly scent of an orchid. Something like the store-bought roses we buy, I suppose.
We just recently returned home from my mom’s (and ours) bucket list trip in our motor home to the Grand, Zion and Bryce canyons, making our way there via northern California, Death Valley, Las Vegas and home through Montana, which was another feast for my eyes and nose. We picked some sweet ripe lemons off the small bush of my husband’s relatives in California, which were the exact colour of an orange. We wandered around their neighbourhood, observing the different kinds of palms, wispy pines and cacti, and noticed that a lot of the hedges and ground covers were rosemary, attracting hordes of bees.
Death Valley National Park supported some very interesting life, despite the fact it is the hottest place on earth. We stayed that night at a small campground just outside the park after a day of sightseeing in the already early March heat, and that middle-of-nowhere place was surprisingly one of the highlights of the entire trip. It turned out to be a desert oasis, offering a fresh, warm springs pool to bask in, our site surrounded and shaded by tall palms and salt cedars.
The weathered pines at the Grand Canyon, the incredible variety of foliage at Zion and the almost cartoon characteristics and colours of Bryce, all made the trip so memorable.
Even if I’m just making a local trip not too far from home, I always try to notice everything that grows around me, both in nature and in people’s gardens. The world is an amazing place with lots to see, touch and smell. You don’t have to travel to far-away places to see the world.
We have so much to see right here, so don’t miss a thing.