Stourhead Garden

Heather W in the grotto, by Jon:Kris by Jon:

Rachel and Christine by Jon:

Stourhead temple by Jon:

Another temple by Roxanne:

Classic scene by Jon:

Garden by Bentley:

Back support in the buttercups, by Bentley:

London Gardens

Rose Garden, Holland Park (where we'll be staying):

The Holland Park walled garden, where weather permitting, we have early morning class: The Youth Hostel garden at Holland Park:

This is either Temple or Lincoln's Inn field. It's the one by the Soane Museum in the City of London:

The Peter Pan Statue in Kensington Gardens. Or maybe it's in Hyde Park--it's right on the boundary between, just west of the Serpentine.

The Bobby Burns statue in Embankment Gardens:

John and Karla in Queen Mary's Rose Garden, Regent Park:

I think this is Tavistock Square in Bloomsbury. We couldn't stand our London lodgings that year, so we spent a lot of time outdoors:

Kew Gardens:

Stourhead

The trouble with Stourhead is you can go and look at it all you want, but you can’t have a temple, a fake Roman arch, a bridge, a tower, an artificial lake, a waterfall, a cross, an island, a cottage, and a grotto all in a quarter-acre suburban garden.

It still seems stupendously profligate and unjust that one man or one family could rearrange whole landscapes for their private pleasure. [2003]

Stourhead is as lovely and unchanging as ever. Actually they are probably not unchanging—it’s just that we see them at the same time of year each time we come, so they’re like seeing the same woman in the same dress, or the painting on the same wall and in the same light year after year. For the first time the temples struck me not only as fake and empty, but as vacuous, empty of meaning, like one-dimensional props for the theatre. Even though they’re made of stone, they’re fake, focal points only for the eye, with no other function. Not real. But what could be prettier, across the water (fake lake) than a beautifully proportioned little temple? Too bad it isn’t real up close. The garden itself is blooming, lovely, alive, however. I would like to see it in all its seasons, not only in late spring. [2005]

Food and Class in the Open Air (Hathaway Garden)

The Victorians (2003)

We’re sitting in the garden at Ann Hathaway’s cottage listening to Kelli talk about garden styles through the ages, especially comparing the Victorian passion for ornate carpets of bedding plants to their nostalgic literature extolling the simple, delicate, useful herb-and-flower cottage garden. We are so similar to the Victorians, particularly us Mormons.

Gardens at Brantwood