Construção e manutencao de jardins Algarve

Projectos de arquitectura paisagista 

Desenho de jardins 

Manutencao de áreas verdes por avença 

www. ecossistemas.com

Garden Center or centre

Interview with Martha Schwartz

11/15/2011 by asladirt

Martha Schwartz, FASLA, is president of Martha Schwartz Partners and professor of landscape architecture practice at Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Her most recent book is Recycling Spaces: Curating Urban Evolution: The Work of Martha Schwartz Partners.

In 2008, you wrote in BBC News that “landscape architects lag behind architects in the conversation around sustainability” and are relegated to dealing with green roofs. Almost four years later, do you still think this is true?

Definitely not as true. There has been a real ascendancy of the profession. We are now being recognized as able to lead urban-scale design and planning efforts, to define the issues, generate strategies for what needs to be done in the structuring and enabling of the project, set the environmental agenda, and then create the structure for community engagement. Of course, we are also able to bring this more strategic level of thinking into a physical design. We are often brought in advance of the architects since our agenda does not necessarily include building buildings. Clients feel more secure knowing that it is not a forgone conclusion that complex urban issues do not always resolve in buildings. We now able to organize larger teams to tackle these complicated issues that cities have.

Right now, people are not that interested in building iconic buildings. They’re trying to figure out how to fix, expand, shrink or build their city. We are the profession most able to synthesize the many different systems that make a city work. As informed generalists, we can handle a huge amount of information across many topics and still come to a conclusion about what needs to happen.

The process is more open-ended and more collective. A site has a finite environmental holding capacity. Based on what those constraints are that are generated by the environment, the next series of “systems” that must be considered is what I call the “soft” systems – the social, cultural, and economically-based systems. All of these forces are played out upon the urban landscape. Cities are growing and so are now becoming a major environmental issue. We can build them so they are a positive effect on our global environment or we can build them so they are a detriment. So the topic of the urban landscape is becoming very urgent and important.

In the same article you call for a focus on the “softer side of sustainability,” which involves developing more sustainable communities where there’s a “sense of place, identity, and belonging.” One way to do this is “careful and inspired design which can make all the difference between a place that is viewed as no real significance to anyone and a place that attracts people creates vitality and is cherished by its inhabitants.” Do you think more communities have been getting the message?

I know that a few larger American cities are, but in general, I don’t think the U.S. has really gotten to this point. America has had an uneasy relationship with cities. The Europeans have lived in dense cities historically and therefore have been aware of the value of making their cities attractive for a long time. But even cities in developing countries understand that to attract people they need to make their cities attractive. Yes, insight is playing out around the world.

But for most Americans, the idea that sustainability is linked to the way our environment looks is a stretch. However, there is much scientific evidence now that proves that the quality of our physical environment has psychological and emotional impacts upon us. We are working on a hospital in Vienna where the landscape is incorporated into the financial pro-forma of the operation of the hospital. They know that if they build landscapes that the patients enjoy then they can move the patients out more quickly. In the U.S., physical design is viewed as “non-functional” and seen as just a cherry on top of the cake. It is a mystery to me why this close relationship between what something looks like and its value is not more fully appreciated by Americans. It is understandable when it comes to electronics, cars or fashion, but when this is applied to cities people generally go blank.

The “softer side of sustainability” is just my way of saying that the urban landscape is not only about technical or science-based systems. The urban landscape is greatly shaped and organized and enables what people think, feel, and do. To design in the city, there must be a recognition of ALL the systems, the natural and the people systems that must be accounted for. A project designed without an understanding of these domains will not be able to resolve a landscape that is balanced, nor will it last long. One definition of sustainability is that something will have longevity. Longevity in the urban environment can only be achieved if people value it. If people value something, they will tend to invest in it and keep it. It becomes important to them and therefore sustains. But things and places that are not valued or attractive to people in some way, become degraded, and will eventually fail.

What design can do is create streets, spaces, and neighbourhoods that attract people. Everybody knows you pay more money to be in nice places and that almost everybody wants to be in beautiful environments. Beautiful environments and cities create desirability. This desirability creates value. People invest both economically and emotionally. The DESIGN and functionality of a city cannot and should not be seen as separate factors. Design does function on many levels. Without it, one cannot really create a liveable city and cannot compete in a globalized world.

In one session at the annual meeting, you said, “Green roofs are nice, but what about sustainable cities?” At Harvard, where you teach in the School of Design, you founded the Working Group for Sustainable Cities, an interdisciplinary group of professors who are focused on urban sustainability. Bringing in lots of different academic fields must be interesting. How does that change the conversation? What are the toughest issues limiting sustainable urban development according to this group?

We are still in the business of formulating exactly how we’re going to apply our collective knowledge and expertise. We hosted a series of lunches for local mayors around Boston that we ran as a fact-finding mission. We learned about the many dire issues cities are facing today.

Although many of the cities differed in specifics, in general, all the cities are hampered by money. Yet they still have to take care of the basics, while trying to plan for their future. They need to upgrade themselves so that they keep their people, their tax base, and attract businesses.

These “Mayors Luncheons,” hosted by the Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School of Government have been very valuable. Not only are we learning what we can do as a group, but we’re also learning what we need to be teaching our students so they can learn how to approach sustainability at a city scale. There is a great deal of information and expertise to be shared.

For teaching landscape architects we can learn to discover what the issues really are, such as how do cities operate, how do politics affect and shape environmental and economic issues? Landscape architects are being taught how to think about, define, and solve urban issues and still design them to be wonderful and valued parts of the city.

In another lecture, you seem very pessimistic about the ability of Americans to connect with “real” nature, particularly in cities, arguing that “nature today is a commodity that is inserted in bits and pieces into an environment that is itself a constructed product of our will. It does what we want and sadly all we want is to enjoy the view without being inconvenienced.” Are you still pessimistic? Do you think that values are shifting towards protecting and reinvesting in nature with the younger generation?

I think that’s a wrong read. I’m not pessimistic, I am realistic. People are eager to connect with nature. Our issue is that we do not see with honesty HOW we are building the landscape in our cities. IF it is not natural, then it goes un-regarded. We Americans love nature and our national parks. We love nature, but what we don’t love is all the built landscape that we live and work in. We don’t plan our cities so nature can play a role in it. We don’t invest our money in urban landscapes because they cost a lot of money and must be planned well in advance. We don’t vote for taxes to maintain our landscapes. But the reality is that we build our landscapes and build them cheaply and without much ambition for them. Look at the landscape environment of our strips — all that in-between landscape between the gas station, the big-box developments. It is why most American cities are unattractive. We Americans have used up a great deal of our nature indiscriminately as it is viewed as a unlimited resource while still loving it at the same time.

We carry a nature myth within us as Americans. We love nature as wilderness but we don’t love any built, constructed environment as it falls outside our idealized picture of nature. There’s a great divide between what people consider to be landscapes of value and landscapes that are not valued. Once a landscape has been manipulated, it has no value. So we don’t bring our resources to it. Codes that might demand a higher quality for its planning, design, and execution have resulted in a tremendous, almost wall-to-wall visual degradation of our environment. Through demonstration, we have built our environment through an ethos that says, “If it’s not nature, we don’t care about it.” That’s what really pains me. Our abundance of nature has provided us too much of a good thing and we have used it indiscriminately. Our ability to sprawl and use our landscape in a wasteful and neglectful way will ultimately has already greatly diminished what was a very beautiful country. Our landscape is a natural resource that is limited and has value. It must be viewed in that way.

My frustration is that people don’t understand or accept the notion that we build and therefore shape our environment. We build our landscape like we build our buildings so that we could live in it. It’s a built artifact and, as such, we should be thinking more critically about how we design it. Our landscapes are our streets, sidewalks, median strips, train corridors, highway right-of-ways, parking lots, on and off ramps, the back alleyways– all that leftover space has been chopped up by roads and highways. We’ve built most of our constructed landscapes very carelessly and without real investment. Now most of us have to pass through miles and miles of degraded, ugly, and dispirited open spaces, which comprise our urban and suburban landscapes.

In recent years, you’ve been creating large-scale master and landscape plans in United Arab Emirates and Qatar. For Qatar Petroleum, you proposed a “verdant green oasis landscape” in the desert. What are the long-term sustainability issues involved in creating water-intensive developments in desert ecosystems?

In most countries, outside the United States, you can’t build landscapes that are not carefully calculated to be able to survive on the water systems that are being produced within nearby buildings. We would never actually build anything that required more water than what we actually generate on-site. So if readers are viewing this as an unsustainable landscape, it’s a misunderstanding of that plan.

We used planting in areas that both were shaded by the buildings, where there would be less transpiration, and in areas where most people would be. Where there would be little use by people, it feathered out into an absolutely arid landscape. We used the same principles in our design for the Abu Dhabi Corniche where we designed to the strict regulations required for Estidama, the UAE’s tight standards for sustainability in the landscape.

One of your projects for the late ’90s, the Geraldton Mine Project, is a bold example of how to turn a degraded landscape into an economic and cultural asset. Beyond simply creating a beautiful land form, you also restored soils, re-vegetated, and created trails in an effort to lure tourists to a small town in Ontario. Does this site serve as a model for restoration for the thousands of mining sites throughout the world? What have been the challenges to scaling up this kind of approach? Why hasn’t it happened more?

That’s a very good question. We have worked on three mining sites, all of which have created a regeneration of those sites and their surroundings. It’s an incredibly robust model for how to re-use a degraded landscape so it can be productive again. The issue with Geraldton, a very small post-mining town, is that it had run out of its economy. Post-mining, what remained was a devastated landscape and an environmentally toxic landscape. The only way the town could figure out how to survive was to try to capture the people travelling on the Trans-Canadian Highway and get them to stop. But, of course, as you were passing through this area, you would just put the pedal-to-the-metal to get out of there as quickly as possible.

The idea was to take the huge pile of mining tailings and reshape them into something that was not the natural landscape so that it contrasted with the natural landscape, which is very flat and monotonous. The concept was to take the tailings and sculpt them to create land art. As a result, people did stop. They wondered, “What is this?” or “What’s happening here?” People would slow down to explore and come into the town. As a result of capturing some of their economy, they continued to develop the other parts of the site into a golf course that generated more economy and so it started to generate a new economy.

There aren’t that many who understand that the landscape, the earth, trees could be seen as an artistic medium, like a box of paints. You have beautiful, living and inanimate materials, and one can create something that has cultural resonance. The narrative or idea can be about anything. All great art is, essentially, a very personal statement or inquiry. A built landscape is not required to look or mimic nature. If we are creating it, like any other cultural art form, it can be what we wish it to be. There’s no law that says it has to look like nature. What if all the books or movies or plays were about one subject matter or were dictated by the government? It would be stopping the evolution of culture. Without realizing it, people have very clear notions of what a landscape should be, while we’re much more open about what a building can be because we know it’s a cultural artifact. But to most in the U.S., a landscape must represent nature or the process of nature. I strongly disagree with this didactic view of how our landscape must be designed. It is a narrow view. Because in our cities, in the places we make for ourselves to live, the landscape could and should have cultural resonance and meaning. This is actually a necessity to making spaces that people will love and cherish and, ultimately, be sustained.

Also, do you know that the Sphinx is a mining site? That’s where they mined the stone for the pyramids. They just decided they didn’t want an ugly hole. They actually sculpted it and created art. It’s a wonderful example of what one can do with a quarry.

We worked in Winslow, New Jersey, on a clay quarry that had been a dump for 30 cars. It was a degraded and socially dangerous site. With the client, and an ecologist, we regenerated it so now it’s an informal nature conservancy. Now, people want to know if they can buy the land to develop it into housing (no). But the point is, that now, there is a whole new set of possibilities for the site and the town. We also worked in northern England in a small post-mining village so to help in the regeneration of the town. We provided a master plan for about 100 acres and then designed a village green on top of the filled-in mining shaft.

John Dixon Hunt, a landscape historian at the University of Pennsylvania, said your Exchange Square in Manchester is an example of how landscape artists can “transform history” In this case, the site “designates a new boundary between modern and medieval.” What story do you think the plaza tells?

Wow. That’s a great compliment coming from John. Of course, I have my own narrative. I’m happy to tell you about it but it’s not important except for creating a way of directing the design concept as we developed it. What’s important is that there is enough visual content so that people can bring their own interpretation to a public space. There has to be a visual coherence that people “get” that there is a narrative of some sort; it needs to be able to be described and memorable. But is must also be open-ended so it is not prescribed or didactic. A space doesn’t work if you feel that the viewer must think and feel the same way you do or to “get” the story. I am not interested in those types of spaces and, frankly, I don’t think most people find them particularly interesting either. People like a mystery or riddle. And in order to make these spaces relevant to individuals, they need to be understood and appreciated in very personal terms. Allowing people to bring their own narratives to a space is a much richer source of narratives.

Our narrative was based upon knitting the city together after a bomb blast has made a hole in the city fabric. We spatially knitted the old cathedral district together with the more modernized shopping district. The yellow Yorkstone represented the historic district as this area was built upon a great geological outcropping of Yorkstone. The upper shopping district sat on a granite and glass plaza. They were stitched together along a “seam” of gentle ramps and linear benches.

Lastly, earlier in your career, you were known for your iconic, playful pop-art landscapes. My personal favorite is the Rio shopping center, using more than 350 golden frogs. But even your playful elements are often geometrical, with an underlying logic. Can you talk about how you use humor to create compelling landscapes, and maybe geometry, too?

My humor is a personal thing. I come from a pretty funny family. It’s just the way I grew up. When I’m with my family, it’s hilarious. They’re really funny people, highly goofy. But humor can also be a very powerful weapon and means of conveying ideas that are uncomfortable to face head-on. If you listen carefully, most of the greatest comedians like Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Dave Chappelle and Richard Pryor, are the angriest people ever. But what they say is very serious. The idea comedy or humor is not serious is really simple-minded. Behind their jokes are issues that are extremely serious and difficult to digest. But through their artistry they’re able to speak about these difficult issues and allow people to face them in a way that is much more acceptable. A fire-and-brimstone lecture ends to turn people off. Humor is a way of making medicine go down in a delightful way. It can deliver contentious and critical information in a stealth way. I use humour to disguise a difficult message. There is something there for everyone — for those who “see” it as well as those who don’t. They are at the same time funny and critical.

We did this one installation in Bavaria. It was the garden of Baron Von Munchausen (the real person). We were free to do what we wanted however we weren’t allowed to alter the garden in a permanent way. The concept we had was to create an outdoor gallery exhibit from garden ornaments that people put in their gardens. Half of the 50 ornaments were from a U.S. garden shop and the other 25 ornaments from a German garden shop. I set them up on large white plinths, like you would see in a museum, which were arranged in a point grid. We cut the grass over the course of two months, which created a mown grid of grass about 5 meters wide. The objects on plinths were set at the intersections of the grass grid in the midst of very loosey-goosey, overgrown garden. There was the tire with the geraniums, American flags, the jockey holding a lamp, the wishing well, and the deck chair. It had all this stuff that underpins a billion-dollar industry. Gardening is the second-biggest hobby in American economy, worth billions of dollars. It reflects that values and aesthetics of our culture. We put these objects it in our gardens as a way of expressing what we wish others to see. The show was a cultural snapshot of the American and German cultures.

The contrast between all this junk we place in our gardens and the loveliness of this overgrown and lush garden was brutal. The curator from the Bielefeld Art Museum, who funded it, came up to me and said, “You’re really an angry person, aren’t you?” and I said, “Well, I’m glad somebody got it.”

But most people loved it. They had fun.

Interview conducted by Jared Green.

Image credits: (1) Martha Schwartz / Image credit: Fennell Photography, (2) Exchange Square, Manchester, UK. Image credit: Martha Schwartz Partners, (3) McLeod Tailings, Geraldton, Canada / Image credit: Martha Schwartz Partners, (4) Exchange Square, Manchester, UK Image credit: Martha Schwartz Partners, (5) Rio Shopping Center, U.S.A. / Image credit: Martha Schwartz Partners, (6) 51 Garden Ornaments, Germany / Image credit: Martha Schwartz Partners

Serviços de jardinagem algarve

This spring make your garden look the most beautiful with the ideal flowers and plants. You can look after your garden and make it look like a true heaven if you keep in mind some basic steps of gardening and rules for spring gardening. Spring season is a much awaited season and this spring; turn your garden into a beauty.

With the end of winters, what most of us are looking forward to, is the spring season. The time of the year when nature’s beauty is at its peak is something worth enjoying. You can make the spring season even more fun and enjoyable by working on your spring garden this time and planting your favorite flowers in your spring garden. The spring gardens are always a pleasure to look at and it is a worldwide fact that there is no comparison of natural beauty with any other beauty. So why not create your own little heaven this spring?

Anyone can start with gardening for their spring garden and you can start now as this is the best time to start planting for your spring garden. Even if you are new to gardening, you can easily start gardening for your spring garden this season and enjoy the beautiful flowers and plants which are true blessing of Mother Nature. Before starting on with your spring garden, you need to know about the types of flowers that grow really well in spring. Try to grow such flowers more in your spring garden and do not go with the off season types even though, almost every flower grows in spring, some grow better and look beautiful too.

The most common flowers that grow in spring and look amazing are marigolds, roses, magnolias, tulips and daffodils. They bring the most amazing colors to your spring garden. The roses are the best and loved by all and roses of all colors can be grown to give the most enchanting and mesmerizing feel to your spring garden. The marigolds with their lovely yellow and gold tinge are a great break from the red and greens and are perfect for your spring garden. You can plant these flowers in big or small pots or even plant them around the edges of your spring garden to create a boundary made of flowers which will give the most amazing look to your spring garden.

To add that extra beauty and magic to your spring garden you can even make a welcome arch for your garden and the arch or hedge can be of jasmine as it is a sweet smelling and beautiful flower which is great for your spring garden. Use garden accessories like beautiful pots, bird feed stands, garden figures and bird cages to give a really pretty feel to your garden and once your spring garden is ready, you can even throw a grand spring garden party!

O sucesso de uma boa horta também passa por plantar as frutas, ervas aromáticas, legumes e vegetais certos, nos momentos certos. Se tem dúvidas relativamente ao mês mais adequado para plantar o que quer que seja na sua horta, imprima esta check-list e mantenha-a sempre por perto. Depois, é só colher e saborear os frutos do seu trabalho!

Janeiro (Hemisfério Norte) | Julho (Hemisfério Sul)

• O que deve plantar/semear na horta: alface, alhos, ervilhas, favas, rabanetes, repolho.

Fevereiro (Hemisfério Norte) |Agosto (Hemisfério Sul)

• O que deve plantar/semear na horta: aipo branco, alcachofras, cebola, couves diversas, espargos, morangueiros, pimentos, tomate (na terra); melão, melancia, pepino (em vaso).

Março (Hemisfério Norte) | Setembro (Hemisfério Sul)

• O que deve plantar/semear na horta: abóbora, alface, beterraba, cebola, cenoura, couves, ervilhas, espinafres, favas, feijão de trepar, lentilhas, melão, melancia, nabiças, nabos, pepino, rabanetes, salsa, tomate.

Abril (Hemisfério Norte) | Outubro (Hemisfério Sul)

• O que deve plantar/semear na horta: abóbora, acelgas, agrião, alface, batatas, beterraba, brócolos, cenoura, chicória, coentros, cominhos, couves diversas, favas, feijão, melão, melancia, nabos, pimentos, rabanetes, salsa, tomilho, (na terra); cebola, pepino, tomate (em viveiro).

Maio (Hemisfério Norte) | Novembro (Hemisfério Sul)

• O que deve plantar/semear na horta: abóbora, agrião, alface, beterraba, brócolos, cenoura, couves, espinafres, feijão, melão, melancia, nabos, pepino, pimentos, rabanetes, repolho.

Junho (Hemisfério Norte) | Dezembro (Hemisfério Sul)

• O que deve plantar/semear na horta: abóbora, agrião, alface, beterraba, brócolos, cenoura, couves, espinafres, feijão, melão, melancia, nabos, pepino, pimentos, rabanetes, repolho.

Julho (Hemisfério Norte) | Janeiro (Hemisfério Sul)

• O que deve plantar/semear na horta: agrião, alface, beldroegas, cenoura, couves-de-bruxelas, espinafres, feijão de trepar/anão, nabos, rabanetes, repolho, salsa.

Agosto (Hemisfério Norte) | Fevereiro (Hemisfério Sul)

• O que deve plantar/semear na horta: agrião, alface, chicória, espinafres, feijão, salsa, rabanetes, repolho (na terra); beterraba, couves diversas, ervilhas, espinafres, feijão (em estufa).

Setembro (Hemisfério Norte) | Março (Hemisfério Sul)

• O que deve plantar/semear na horta: agrião, aipo, alface, alho, cebola, cenoura, chicória, coentros, couves diversas, ervilhas, favas, feijão, morangos, nabos, rabanetes, repolho, salsa.

Outubro (Hemisfério Norte) | Abril (Hemisfério Sul)

• O que deve plantar/semear na horta: agrião, alho, beterraba, cenoura, coentros, couves, ervilhas, espargos, espinafres, favas, lentilhas, morangos, nabos, rabanetes (na terra); alface, cebola, couves diversas (em vaso/estufa).

Novembro (Hemisfério Norte) | Maio (Hemisfério Sul)

• O que deve plantar/semear na horta: alho, alface, aveia, batata, cebola, centeio, cevada, couves diversas, favas, morangos, tremoços, trigo.

Dezembro (Hemisfério Norte) | Junho (Hemisfério Sul)

• O que deve plantar/semear na horta: macieiras, pereiras.

What is a mediterranean climate?

by Heidi Gildemeister

It is generally accepted that the mediterranean climate occurs in southern and southwestern Australia, central Chile, coastal California, the Western Cape of South Africa and around the Mediterranean Basin. The largest area with a mediterranean climate is the Mediterranean Basin, which has given the climate its name, although stretches of the Mediterranean coast (in Egypt, Libya and part of Tunisia) are too dry to be thus classified. More than half of the total mediterranean-climate regions on earth occur on the Mediterranean Sea.

Mediterranean-climate regions are found, roughly speaking, between 31 and 40 degrees latitude north and south of the equator, on the western side of continents. Yet they can extend eastwards for thousands of kilometers into arid regions if not arrested by mountains or confronted with moist climates, such as the summer rainfall that occurs in certain regions of Australia and South Africa. The most extended penetration goes from the Mediterranean Basin up into western Pakistan and into some areas of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan (the source of many of our cherished bulbous plants).

In contrast, the mediterranean areas of California and Chile are constricted to the east by mountains closes to the Pacific coast. This is not the case, however, for Australia and South Africa, where monsoon troughs may bring summer rainstorms. In fact, the mediterranean-climate regions of both Australia and South Africa have important but unpredictable rainfall in the summer, a factor that has a significant effect on their vegetation.

The seasonality of the mediterranean climate differs profoundly from that of latitudes to the north or south. Writers, especially those from the north, tend to rave about the attractive features of the climate as "one continuous summer," "an ever-blue sky," or "everlasting sun." But those who live near the Mediterranean Sea know that these descriptions are not really accurate.

In most mediterranean regions climatic changes are pronounced. It is in the autumn – after summer drought and dormancy – that the yearly life cycle of plants starts anew, like the awakening in spring that follows winter dormancy in the north. As I write, in late autumn, the day is radiant and warm, and garden work is a joy. "Such a nice autumn," I say to the farmer, who replies, "Si, es el veranillo de San Martin." (Yes, it is the little summer of Saint Martin – 11th November) This "little summer" is known to last just a few days attesting to the variability of the mediterranean climate.

Autumn-flowering cyclamen in the MGS garden.
Photo by Chris Wassenberg

In winter, periods of rain alternate with warm, sunny days. We know that after three days of howling winds, during which one closes all windows, turns inwards and appreciates the solid walls of one’s house, one can expect mild, sunny days.

Later the splendid spring display is brought to an abrupt end by hot, dry winds and rising temperatures, which cause seeds to ripen and disperse. When the glorified “continuous summer” arrives it is painfully long, so that plants retire into dormancy, making us believe they are about to die. Indeed, a long, hot summer is required by most mediterranean bulbs if they are to go dormant and ripen in the dry ground. But that summer must be preceded by cool seasons (winter and spring) with soft rains that let the bulbs grow and sprout, so that their juicy stems and shiny foliage can develop in a humid soil before their jubilant spring display. These contrasts are characteristic of the mediterranean climate.

Anemone blanda flowering in March under a plane tree.
Photo by Davina Michaelides


Spring bulbs – wild garlic and tulips in the MGS garden.
Photo by Barbara Diamantides

Irregularity of the rainfall, which can vary considerably from year to year, accentuates the severity of the mediterranean climate. Rain does not fall evenly. Generally speaking, you can register more rain in the north than in the south, more in the west than in the east of a continent. Nor does the rain arrive yearly at the same time or within the same intervals. In Gibraltar, for instance, rain starts falling nearly half a season earlier than at the Dead Sea. In the Holy Land no rain at all falls in summer but early rains may come in autumn – manna to the arid soil and parched riverbeds – though it is not until the winter rains that the basins fill.

This variability is true for temperatures. In winter the thermometer may fall to zero degrees Celsius and may even bring a short-lived frost, yet these temperatures depend a lot on the location of your house. In a hill garden, the clouds will hang low over the mountains, but on the coast in a protected corner you may enjoy the cherished winter sun. Mediterranean gardeners are grateful for their mild winters – mild enough for garden work to be an ongoing activity.

Lazer é uma das coisas que se pode curtir num parque ou jardim, apreciar e sentir bem perto a natureza nesses lugares é algo renovador.



Veja abaixo a lista dos 10 mais belos jardins do mundo.

Versailles, França

Os 101 hectares são recheados de caminhos que conduzem à flores e plantas
bem alinhadas, com cantos decorados e estatuária clássica, além de lindos lagos ornamentais.

Singapore Botanic Garden

Considerado um dos mais bonitos jardins botânicos do mundo, o
Singapore Botanic Garden foi criado em 1859. São 52 hectares (128 acres).
O National Orchid Garden está no centro, no topo do ponto mais alto do parque,
onde mais de 60.000 orquídeas coloridas florescem.

Descanso Garden Califórnia

A apenas 20 minutos de carro de Los Angeles, é possível encontrar um paraíso bucólico,
com mais de 100.000 plantas e uma das maiores coleções de camélias do mundo.
Os jardins e bosques se desdobram em mais de 65 hectares de San Rafael Hills.

Butchart Gardens, British Columbia, Canadá

O Butchart Gardens é um impressionante exemplo de uma sucedida
recuperação de projeto.
Trata-se de espalhar em 22 hectares com 700 variedades de plantas que
florescem de março a outubro.
Um encanto.

Villa D’Este, Itália

O Villa D ‘Este é embelezado por fascinantes chafarizes.

Tem a Avenida dos Cem Fountains, onde estátuas de cabeças de animais,
lírios, um pequeno barco, bacias, e outros jorram água de maneira magnífica.

Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C

 

É como entrar numa tela de pintura, em meio a árvores impressionantes e um verde intenso. Esta maravilha no extremo norte de Georgetown, Washington torna o bairro o mais agradável.

Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild, França

É preenchido com oliveiras e lavanda, um jardim todo lapidado, com esculturas grandes para serem exibidas naquele espaço que tem traços espanhóis, japoneses, e outros muito exóticos.



Stourhead Warminster, Inglaterra



Feito para os nobres ingleses do século 18, e muito clássico. O Stourhead é um grande exemplo de fascínio com o passado.

The Master-of-Nets Garden, China

Este jardim residencial no sudeste da China, chamado Wang Shi Yuan,
em chinês, foi concebido durante a dinastia Song.
A disposição dos pavilhões, salas, salas de música,
ranhuras de bambu, poleiros e água é um exercício de harmonia natural.

Sans Souci Potsdam, Alemanha

Frederico, o Grande da Prússia construiu um esplêndido palácio
rococó como seu verão local, onde ele poderia viver sem preocupação.
Bustos de imperadores romanos, estátuas decorativas, e casas de chinês
fazem parte do interessante cenário.