The Garden of Cosmic Speculation was designed and developed beginning in 1989 by Charles Jencks and Maggie Keswick, Jencks' late wife, as a way to celebrate the sciences through their passion for landscape architecture. The garden is atypical in that horticulture isn't the main focus; plants are used as a design tool to accent and display the theories put forth in the overall layout and the individual sculptures. The garden does have a very pleasant and relaxing feel, and offers a natural flow and progression for strolling through its various segments. With wide-open areas bordered by carefully designed mounds, ripples, and hedges, the garden beckons you to take a seat and enjoy the scenery, either deep in thought or with a picnic.
There is a treehouse of sorts there, in the "Garden of Taking Leave of Your Senses" area, with these unusual stairs. I went up...
and it overlooks this strange swampy-thing.
Going down the stairs was harder- they're rather shallow, and steep.
We didn't use these stepping stones...
since this clever staircase is right behind them!
I think Wolverine was his gardener...
This, the Black Hole Terrace, was what I saw the most images of online before we went. It seemed a lot larger than it was in person, leading me to fervently hope assume the entire garden would be rather Queen of Hearts-like. It wasn't; but it was still fantastic.
Found some flowers! This was, in fact, called the "Flower Paradise Garden."
Hedge-hole leading to the Time Garden.
This description...
is on this little guy. (Not Paul; the building.) Paul's quite keen on it, though, and wanting his own octagonal clubhouse/enclosed gazebo someday.
The Comet Bridge.
I really liked the arched walls and hedges.
There were several sculptures in the DNA Garden 6 Senses.
I do like a designed footpath!
The other most-photographed part of the garden- the Universe Cascade.
A pillar-topper.
The Garden was definitely worth the drive up! It's an unusual site that I doubt I'll have another chance to see, so I'm really glad we made the trip!
Wow! I really love this garden! It's a pity, though, that it's just open one day a year. I mean that's cool in some aspects. I'd sooo love to visit it, but living that far away and making visiting possible just one day a year... Well, I'll have to think about it and figure something out ;) It's really great and I'll try and do everything to visit it one day :)
ReplyDeleteJoanna