Stressed? Look at These Beautiful Gardens

I’ve been into houseplants and how they liven up a house. My boyfriend and Imoved into a new flat last year and it felt so lifeless.

The first thing we bought was a houseplant so that it would keep up company until we could buy the furniture. It grew smooch and now we call it Big Jim. We still have Big Jim and we love him so much!

Very beautiful images, thank you for sharing. In the last few years I’ve become totally obsessed with houseplants. I’m turning my entire home into a beautiful garden of my own. ??

Totally addicted gardener (for the last 20 years!) here so definitely in favor of more on people’s gardens. For anyone designing gardens -check out John Brookes’ books. He explains and shows how to lay out spaces in a way that FINALLY clicked for me (reading other stuff I was mostly just confused). And it works!

Sigh. I keep coming back to this post to gaze at the photos. I think I am more of a garden person than a house person. We bought our current home based primarily on the land and haven’t once regretted it. I would love to see a regular garden tour feature here!

I love this article! I love gardens! Breathtaking! This is why we should take care of the environment.

Oh how very beautiful your gardens are, for me there is nothing more peaceful in life then sitting under a tree in a garden filled with zillions of flowers and butterflies all around. Smelling the roses and lilacs while day dreaming ……I so miss my garden!

Love these. We’re building a house and for the first time will have a real yard.

My husband is all house focused and I am like, “We can plant a dwarf fruit tree here! Let’s do a vegetable garden over there! Roses! Native grasses! What would the bees like?!”

I love this! Gardens and arboretums are top destinations for me on every vacation and I like to go visit the botanical garden in the big city 2 hours away from where I live in the winter. I live in Iowa and our winters are cold, dry and bleak. It’s an instant mood booster to visit the botanical garden and enjoy some color, warmth and humidity when the weather has been depressing for weeks.

breathtaking!

besides paying bills and buying own toilet paper (ok I still get half of my supply from my dad), my other sign of adulting is the love all the “boring old people” things now

this also reminds me of Madison Cox’s landscape work that my uncle showed me once

Absolutely stunning. It’s always a good idea to be close to nature as possible;e.

Trust me when I say you would not want to beam yourself there right now. The weathers been bloody miserable, in mid May!!

Dreamy post, thank you Joanna! I am missing the charming and pretty gardens of temperate England. Look forward to returning some day soon.

Well, I followed Claire and Ngoc on Insta as quickly as I could! Thanks for this fantastic post. Love beautiful gardens! I have a feeling I would have loved them as a kid too. Instead, I oohed and ahhed over mossy forests while camping every summer (not complaining about that experience, that’s for certain). I’ve always been in awe of nature!

My boys thought the same about touring gardens (boring, mom!) until I got them in on it with me. Plant ID, looking for pollinators, tasting herbs right out of the ground… they are just as excited to go roam through a new garden as I am now!

Lovely photos and gardens, and I am following the IG accounts mentioned now. Visiting gardens (once they had opened) has become one of my favorite things to do during the pandemic. While Northern California generally is rather dry, we do have some lovely gardens around: Filoli Gardens, Ruth Bankcroft Garden, Hakone Gardens (Japanese garden), UC Santa Cruz Botanical Garden and so on. It’s so peaceful to stroll gardens, and I discover new plants and views each time I go. Would love to have a green thumb or the budget to hire a landscape designer or architect to create a drought-tolerant native garden!

Hello Joanna! Although I’ve never been to England myself, these pictures remind me of an amazing aesthetic of Jane Austen’s and Charlotte Bronte’s novels and films based on them. These are really great stress relievers. Thank you for sharing!

100%

Throughout this pandemic, I’ve been watching BBC Gardener’s World with Monty Don and it’s the most relaxing, inspiring, and simple joy. It’s kind of strange to pay $5 a month to watch a garden show from 2011 to present day, but everyone I’ve turned on to this show has thanked me (in the US – apparently he’s HUGE in the UK and Australia). I can get my 5 year old daughter and 65 year old dad (both are total chatterboxes) to quiet down, get cozy, and ooh and ahh at the gorgeousness of the English garden.

For anyone in western Washington, Bloedel Reserve is as amazing as all of these photos combined! Definitely worth a trip. There is no food, drink, pets, or ‘noise’ allowed so it truly feels like magic.

This made me so nostalgic for my year in England.

Wow thanks for the inspiration! I have a big outdoor landscape at home and I often visit when I take a break from work.

Just want to throw a little plug for the landscape architects and landscape designers across the world who create these beautiful spaces! I’m a landscape architect by training and profession, and while my specialty in isn’t designing spaces such as the above, I feel the need to let people know that these are real jobs and they are pretty incredible! :)

If anyone wants to know more: https://www.asla.org/aboutlandscapearchitecture.aspx

These gardens are beautiful!

Joanna, you’re speaking to my childhood directly! My dad was in the military and we spent a year in England. While we never did make it to France/Italy/literally any country in Europe like my 10-year-old self dreamed, we did see allllllllll the country homes and gardens :P

Involuntary grin during what’s really been a stressful week for me! Thank you!

I grew up in New York and moved to the mountain south several years ago. I always want to kind of shake my NY friends and be like, “LOOK! Look at how beautiful southern landscapes are!” Just my dog walks alone, with the magnolia blossoms the size of dinner plates.

It is my dream to transform our backyard into one of these magical spaces. My flowers bring me such peace and contentment. I really do feel my shoulders drop and my blood pressure lower when I am sitting amongst them.