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GuySmiley wrote:Good morning @AW, mmm, comment dire cela en français à propos des messages d'hier ? when in France I visited Monet's garden and the gardens and parterres of Versailles Palace. Give me Claude's garden and its wild unkempt shrubbery any day ....... although I left a little bit of my heart in Ravello (below), have a good one
GuySmiley & @Hiccups.
Agree Guy, I do like the Monet garden at Versailles Palace, I like gardens that are not under restraint and constraint. Agree, with non Australian gardens globally I like those that ramble.
In Europe I have two areas in particular that take my fancy.
In Spain, the Gardens of Alhambra, totally influenced by the Moors across the Mediterranean to the south.
The other, gardens along the Mediterranean from say Gibraltar all the way NE to Monaco. I have a particular interest in xeriphytic gardens, plants that survive without watering intervention, plants that survive rain to rain and are fully adapted to surviving and reproducing in very hot climates.
The gardens of houses along the Amalfi coastline in Italy are also a joy, I was there a long time ago but remember how great it appeared.
Similarly, I love Southern Californian gardens adapted to the same type of climate as just mentioned.
A visit to Santa Barbara Botanic Gardens way up the back of town in the foothills, is a must when you visit California. You can see and feel why certain types of plants have evolved in the manner that’s in front of you.
One of the best dry Botanic Gardens I’ve visited.
Throughout all my years as a landscape designer and contractor, we built a lot of xeriphytic gardens, sometimes at the clients request, other times I’d design them and the client was none the wiser.
The plant palette for these types of gardens was amazing.
Apart from building a lot of Australian native gardens, I designed and built gardens containing a mix of Mediterranean, Californian and Australian plants, always with the eye on low water regimes, particularly pertinent when we had years of drought.
No plant biases, just the right plant for the correct situation.
All the best. AW
After 4 days of rain we finally get to see the sun again, tomorrow’s looking good before the rain returns . 
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In semi lockdown I'm finally sorting through a lifetime of photos and inspired by what Craig and Andy recently posted I thought why not.
We travel a fair bit and there has to be some crackers in the vaults.
Good if we follow the Swellnet tradition of not naming or being too obvious.