Man-made paradise: 5 grandiose garden and park complexes that have become works of art

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The gardening season has already begun, and many were fortunate enough to take refuge from the worries and dangers at their dachas. For many centuries, gardening has served as an outlet for people, a way to merge with nature and the opportunity to create their own small world. But some of the gardens can be called true works of art …

Garden and park complex Las Pozas in Mexico

Las Pozas was created by the English philanthropist Edward James, who was quite passionate about Surrealist painting and patronized the surrealist female group in Mexico. For a long time he hatched plans to create his own Garden of Eden, until one of the brightest representatives of the trend, Bridget "Bate" Tichenor, told him where all these daring ideas could be realized. Edward hired a guide, and together they began to explore the protected areas in Mexico. And finally, in 1945, everything came together: the guide met his love, and the patron discovered a territory suitable for a garden on the slope of the Sierra Madre mountain.

Over the next twenty years, Edward James supervised the construction of strange concrete structures there - stairs, ramps, suspension bridges, artificial paths and arches, unusually contrasting with lush vegetation and harmoniously combined with rocks. He had to part with part of his magnificent painting collection in order to create his own masterpiece. And for almost two decades he was finalizing his project, which, however, remained unfinished - a stroke prevented James from bringing the park to perfection.

Nong Nooch complex in Thailand

Named after one of its founders - Mrs. Nong Nooch Tansacha and now belongs to her son. Initially, Nong Nooch Park was supposed to be a large-scale vegetable and fruit plantation, but Mrs. Nong Nooch and Mr Pease decided that tourism is a promising development direction for Thailand, and something needs to be done to attract visitors. However, the construction of the park was fully completed only in 2000, half a century after its foundation.

Nong Nooch Park is a rare plant (some of them are no longer found in the wild) and a somewhat kitschy, but incredibly complex landscape design. Elements of decor and Versailles Park, Buddhist pagodas, English telephone booths, sculptures from flower pots in Thai style and own Stonehenge … No wonder that Nong Nooch is adored by both adults and children! In the center of the park can be found the current owner's luxury car collection. Today, the main task of Nong Nooch Park, in addition to entertainment for the public, is the preservation of endangered species of palm trees and ferns.

Garden of Cosmic Reflections in Scotland

The Garden of Cosmic Reflections is located in the most picturesque and tourist-favorite region of Scotland, surrounded by ancient castles and famous museums. Thirty years ago, a married couple - architect Charles Jencks and landscape designer Maggie Cheswick - decided to combine their talents and capital to create a scientifically mystical garden complex. Maggie loved Eastern philosophy and Chinese gardens, and Charles loved astronomy and physics. The couple considered the park to be a miniature universe.

Strange artificial ponds, hills, stairs and sculptures seem to be abstract art objects, but each of the garden's attractions reflects one or another scientific idea. A snail shell based on the Fibonacci sequence, a staircase illustrating the diversity of life forms, fractal landscapes and pools with black holes, mathematical symmetries and logarithmic curves … Visitors will have to find scientific puzzles among green spaces and try to solve them. Today the Garden of Cosmic Reflections plays not only a scientific and educational, but also a social role. Funds received from visitors go to the Maggie Cheswick Cancer Foundation.

Kawachi Fuji park in Japan

The Japanese are famous for their special love of flowers. The Kawachi Fuji Hanging Garden, located in the small town of Kitakyushu in mid-May, becomes a real tourist mecca - however, the owners decided to open it to foreigners only four decades after its creation. Wicker flower tunnels, tents and wisteria roofs seem to have been created by nature itself, rather than by the hands of talented landscape designers.

Wisteria is one of the state symbols of Japan, and Kawachi Fuji has the richest collection of wisterias in the world - white and blue, lilac and blue. In the evenings, the fabulous gardens seem completely surreal thanks to the skillful lighting. But not only wisterias delight the eye (and smell!) Of visitors - the garden is filled with flowering plums, rhododendrons, azaleas, hydrangeas, clematis, petunias and irises … All these plants are symbolic for Buddhism, and the Kawachi Fuji garden is considered an excellent place for meditation, but only one month of the year - and early in the morning, until it is flooded with crowds of tourists. The remaining eleven months, the park is strictly closed to the public.

Bruno Peat's garden in Australia

And, of course, this list would be incomplete without the magnificent garden of Australian artist Bruno Torfs in the small village of Marysville near Melbourne. This is a completely different universe, inhabited by elves and gnomes, nymphs and forest gods.

It was created from clay and wood by one person - the artist Bruno Torfs. His sculptures are so organically inscribed in the environment that they seem to be living inhabitants of the garden - they are hiding in the shade of tropical trees, looking out of foliage, hiding in vines … Characters of Western European history and mythology have perfectly adapted to their new homeland and are happy to welcome guests. The artist sculpted almost one and a half hundred works in just six months.

Alas, Peat's masterpiece was severely damaged by fire in 2009. But the locals managed to defend more than half of the sculptor's works, and he himself enthusiastically set about restoring the garden.