Gardens

You can learn about more than 400 years of English gardening by visiting London’s Garden Museum (Lambeth Palace Rd., London, SE1 7LB, U.K.; phone +44 20 7401 8865, www.gardenmuseum.org.uk). 

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My taxi awaited below the tall column topped with the gilded statue of St. George slaying the dragon in Tbilisi’s Freedom Square. 

It was 1983 and our first trip to New Zealand. My wife, Carol, and I were wandering around the South Island in a motor home when we noticed a sign for strawberries. We pulled over, walked to a shed and asked about the strawberries.

The owner said it had been too wet that morning, so he hadn’t picked any, but he urged us to take some time to inspect his flower garden.

The item “Horseback Archery, Tokyo” (Feb. ’17, pg. 4) mentioned the Yabusame festival in Asakusa, which is a district in Tokyo’s Taitō ward. During a visit to Japan, we visited Sensō-ji, an ancient Buddhist temple in Asakusa. Although we’ve visited the temple often, that 2014 visit provided us a new treat.

“Colorful” is an understatement when describing the Portuguese island of Madeira’s annual Flower Festival.

For my third visit to this lovely island, I decided to travel April 4-17, 2016, in order to see this wildly popular festival being held April 7-17 in the capital of Funchal. During that time, at least four huge cruise ships were in port for a day or two at a time, and most of the hotels were full.

More than 200 gardens across London’s 25 boroughs open to the public during Open Garden Squares Weekend, held the third weekend of each June (in 2017, June 17-18). There are private gardens and rooftop, museum or barge gardens, etc. Some offer amenities such as food, music and guided tours.