Category Archives: Private Gardens

A Grand Vision at Paripuma

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Cloudy Bay.  If you’re a wine-lover, that name calls up a memory of one of the finest vintages of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, a label we all wished we could afford, back in the early 1990s, when the world was discovering the allure of the green-skinned Bordeaux grape that the Kiwis grew and bottled to perfection in the Marlborough Region at the tip of the South Island. We drank our Kim Crawford and Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blancs, yes, but really wished we were sipping a glass of premium Cloudy Bay.  So the only disappointment my wine-collecting husband felt in our entire NZ garden tour was at NOT stopping for a tasting at Cloudy Bay Wines on our way through Marlborough. We certainly saw our share of vineyards in the region, en route to and from our stay in the Marlborough Vintners Hotel, some draped with netting to prevent bird damage…..

…… some newly planted…..

…… and some growing in their verdant, geometric patterns up the hillsides.

But Cloudy Bay is also a place on the map, and our destination this morning following our first stop at Barewood Garden was a spectacular property on the shore of the bay that Captain James Cook first named in English in 1770 for the cloudiness of its water, a result of the constant churning of the waves over the stony soil washed into what became known as Cook Strait, between the North and South Islands.  Cloudy Bay is now called by its Māori name, Te Koko-o-Kupe/Cloudy Bay, and we were about to visit award-winning Paripuma, a remarkable native plant garden on its shores.

We gathered in a courtyard behind a whitewashed house with simple lines…..

…. and listened to the owner and garden designer, Rosa Davison, talk a little about the property’s history and her own. Having grown up on a farm in the Waihopai Valley in a family that came to the region in the 1840s, she was drawn to the coast near the Marlborough Sounds where she’d spent idyllic childhood vacations.   Two decades ago, she and her husband Michael bought the property less than a half-hour south of Blenheim and moved there with three teenagers. Rosa called it Paripuma (Māori for “white cliffs’) for the famous bluffs nearby, and proceeded to plan her garden on barren paddock that ran to the sea.

We walked through the house onto the pergola terrace enclosed in vines….

…..and sheltered from the sun by gauzy, white shade canopies using dowels hooked to slide-wires. I loved this idea.

There were shells that told the story of life at the seashore: spiny murex, ostrich foot shell, starfish and others.

Seen from the bottom of the stairs leading to the garden, there is a simplicity and pleasing geometric balance to the house framed by the enclosing beds of native shrubs and trees, and a lushness to the palette of green and white.

Rosa had set up “before” photos of the property, and they added to the drama of what we were about to see. This celebratory picnic in 1999 (I love the carpet) heralded the beginning of her creative journey….

…and what stretched out before us with Cook Strait in the distance was its spectacular culmination.  It was as if André LeNôtre’s little bosquets at Versailles had drifted gently down onto this beachfront property under the Antipodean sun. But here at Paripuma, the formal placement of the gardens flanking the 300-metre (980-foot) central allée fulfills a rigorous ecological imperative: to grow a fairly restricted roster of native shrubs and small trees in order to encourage and sustain native wildlife. And though LeNôtre had gardeners to plant his bosques, Rosa Davison planted everything here herself.

The Google satellite view below shows how the garden’s formal central axis almost parallels the shore of Cook Strait, rather than approaching it on the perpendicular, as I’d imagined it had.

I made the decision to turn right to see some of Rosa’s small, enclosed gardens en route to the beach, so I could later approach the house via the big garden.  With a view of the Pacific Ocean in the distance, I walked under tree boughs…..

….. into a formal potager overflowing with leafy vegetables, squash, onions, herbs and berries.

Turning towards the sound of the ocean, I walked through a flower garden filled with familiar perennials – all good pollinator plants in my own meadows and grown here to attract monarch butterflies, which arrived naturally in New Zealand in the 1870s and are thus considered native.

Before long, I was standing at the water’s edge, gazing towards those cliffs that inspired the garden’s name, and the crashing waves that inspired Captain Cook to call it Cloudy Bay.  That’s all still South Island in the distance, with the Tasman Sea out of sight behind.
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But gazing the other way, I looked straight out toward the Pacific Ocean.

Looking down at my feet, I saw the smooth, wave-tumbled rocks that give a “shingle beach” its name. Shingles can range from fairly large cobbles to small stones, and are usually a mélange of different types of rocks.

As I looked back over the shore plants towards the house, it was difficult to imagine how barren this was just two decades ago.

Rosa is also planting natives between the garden and the shore, like this young kākābeak (Clianthus puniceus). And though she welcomes all animals into the garden, including rabbits, young plants are protected with sleeves to give them a fair head start.

Then it was time to explore the main garden.

Mown paths guide visitors between the various beds and invite close inspection of the natives, like the tall harakeke or New Zealand flax (Phormium tenax) and carex species.

A few New Zealand Christmas trees or pōhutukawa (Metrosideros excelsa) were still in flower.

And of course there was native hebe or koromiko (H. salicifolia), among many other plants in the various beds, including ngaio (Myoporum laetum), ake ake (Dodonaea viscosa), puka (Meryta sinclairii), coprosmas, cabbage trees or tī kōuka  (Cordyline australis), Nikau palms (Rhopalostylis sapida) and wire vine (Muehlenbeckia sp.)    She also grows the extremely rare, critically endangered Three Kings Kaikomako (Pennantia baylisiana), which I was able to see the next day at Otari-Wilton’s Bush Native Garden in Wellington.

I came to a small pond surrounded by plants…..

….. with a charming sign that describes its seasonal habitation by one of the many wildlife species that have made Rosa’s garden their own. With all the frogs in the pond, I can only imagine the night music at Paripuma.

Circling the pond, I came to the perfect little dock with one perfect little chair – and only wished we had more time so I could sit here for a moment to take it all in. Notice the view lines right across the central allée to the far side.

Wandering back toward the central path, I took a closer look at the big garden’s simple focal point, set in a small bed of poor knight’s lily (Xeronema callistemon) that had already flowered.

It is an antique whale pot once used at nearby Port Underwood for rendering down whale oil during New Zealand’s notorious whaling era. When the pots were in active use, mostly in the 19th century (including American and Australian whalers), the nation saw its native whales – especially southern rights, humpbacks, sperms – hunted to near decimation. In the years 1911-1964, not far from Paripuma on a headland in the Marlborough Sounds that flows into Cook Strait, 4200 whales were caught at one shore station alone, including the last whale ever killed in the country. Since 1978, whales in New Zealand’s 200-mile offshore waters have been protected under the Marine Mammals Protection Act. As a wildlife-lover and conservationist who supports the New Zealand Whale and Dolphin Trust, Rosa Davison’s whale pot is an evocative and stark reminder of those days, and of the threat that international whaling continues to pose to the country’s whales outside its protective waters.

I headed back up the stairs to the house, taking another look at a photo of Paripuma before the garden was made.

And then I gazed out over this truly amazing landscape once more. New Zealand’s Gardens Trust has named Paripuma a 5-star Garden of National Significance, but it is more than that. It is one woman’s vision fully realized: planned, designed, planted and opened for visitors to explore,  and enjoy.

***********

Planning a trip to New Zealand? There could be no better way to enjoy the scenery and wines of Marlborough than to return ‘home’ each night to one of the region’s most beautiful gardens. Paripuma is available to rent as a bed-and-breakfast, with varying rates based on the accommodation chosen. If we ever get back to Cloudy Bay to taste our favourite Sauvignon Blanc, staying here would be the first order of business.

A Visit to Barewood Garden

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It’s a year since we did our New Zealand garden tour with the American Horticultural Society, and though I almost completed blogging about the beautiful gardens last winter, I didn’t quite finish before spring gardening began and more travel to Denver and Texas interrupted my focus. So today’s blog takes us back to the Marlborough region on the South Island. Pretend you just finished reading my last NZ blog, mosaic artist Josie Martin’s fabulous Giant’s House Garden at Akaroa, on the tip of the Banks Peninsula south of Christchurch.  Now we’re going to head north via an overnight in Christchurch into Marlborough’s Awatere Valley south of Blenheim to Joe and Carolyn Ferraby’s beautiful Barewood Garden Farm, their 690 hectare (1705 acre) property.  We gathered together at the bottom of a hill to watch a shepherd…..

….. guide his sheep dogs as they herded a large flock.

Then we went inside the shearing shed, where we watched the shepherd shear a big ewe……

….. after which the wool from this Merino cross…..

…. was heaped upon a table, where it would be braided and taken to auction.  Ten percent of the farm’s production is wool; the remainder is from lamb export sales.

I made a short video that shows the shepherd’s skill at herding the sheep and also shearing them. As Joe says in the video, the farm has a number of shearers who would normally do this work, leaving the shepherd to handle the flock outdoors.

Then it was time to see the garden. Alas, sometimes it’s necessary to visit beautiful gardens in brilliant midday sun, which creates very difficult light conditions and extreme contrast, so I didn’t do a lot of photography in Carolyn’s beautiful, colour-themed borders. (Added to which, I somehow had my new phone stuck on square format…..)  But let’s take a little tour anyway. In this climate, one of the best defences from the heat is a shady pergola, and this was a lovely one, wreathed in white roses.

It’s where Carolyn served us lemonade……

….. and a delicious cake with cherries from the garden. We were so lucky to dine and snack in most of the gardens on this fantastic tour.

I noticed that the garden featured lovely summerhouses and patios for lounging with a book ……

….. or al fresco dining……

….. or simply sitting in a kiwi-green chair to relax.

But it was time to leave the shade of the wrap-around verandah, where Carolyn’s background as a florist is in beautiful evidence……

….. and walk down the sunny lawn…..

…. where we found a long, cool allée, the hawthorn walk………

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…. and hedge-enclosed borders, which featured perennials and perfumed roses….

…. and tall, fragrant lilies.

There was a blue, yellow and white border. Oh, what I would have given to be there in early morning or on an overcast day to see all these treasures…..

…. like the azure agapanathus.

Speaking of agapanthus, Carolyn grew a paler variety overlooking the pond…..

…. and beside the fenced orchard….

…. where apples and peaches were ripening in mid-summer.  This fruitful part of the country, after all, is where most of New Zealand’s wine industry is located.

A cobble path led through the enclosed potager, which featured Tuscan kale……

…. and lavender, and lots of unusual edibles….

…. like New Zealand cranberries (Ugni molinae).

Beside the wall of the house was a pretty blue-and-purple garden, with cranesbills (Geranium ‘Rozanne’), plumbago and more agapanthus. You can see below what a difference a little shade makes in photography.

Then we had just enough time to greet Joe and Carolyn Ferraby outside their….

….little gift shop, where we shopped for souvenirs. Among the many lovely items, we found sheep-themed tea-towels and…..

….. bars of fragrant New Zealand floral soap.   Then it was time to say farewell, and head out on the road in Marlborough.

Kellie O’Brien’s English Garden in Hinsdale

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The same August day that the Garden Writers Association (GWA) visited Susan Beard’s garden in suburban Oak Grove, Illinois, in Chicago’s western suburbs, which I wrote about in a recent blog, we were also treated to a stop at the Hinsdale garden of Kellie O’Brien.  We got our first peek through the boughs of a crabapple, part of the large mixed border surrounding her front lawn.

As befits Kellie’s design/contracting company, English Gardens, and the architecture of her home, the garden style here was formal, with clipped hedges containing all the ebullience of the borders, including many hydrangeas.  And there were lots of conifers to give interest during Chicago’s long winters.

But Kellie is known for her masterful touch with tropical plants that enjoy Chicago’s warm, humid summers. Have a look at this container with colocasia, chartreuse sweet potato vine (Ipomoea batatas ‘Margarita’), coleus and other foliage plants…..

….. and another nearby containing a tree-form angel’s trumpet (Brugmansia).

We headed to the back garden to meet Kellie. As I walked past this windowbox featuring magenta-leaved Persian shield (Strobilanthes dyerianus), silvery licorice plant (Helichrysum petiolare), trailing purple heart (Tradescantia pallida ‘Purpurea’) and silver ponyfoot (Dichondra argentea ‘Silver Falls’), it was clear that she had a deft touch with subtle colour combinations.

We walked down the flagstone path beside her house…..

….and in the back found more containers stuffed with colourful caladiums, coleus and other tropical delights…..

…. and an enclosed bed containing big-leafed alocasia.

There was a lion’s head fountain nestled in climbing hydrangea (H. anomala ssp. petiolaris)…..

….. and a seating area set into lush plantings of ferns, tropicals and beautifully-displayed container plants……

…. like that popular houseplant mother-in-law’s tongue (Sansevieria trifasciata), displayed as a stunning centrepiece surrounded by yellow lantana and a charteuse sedge.

Teak furniture with red cushion accents surrounded a table with a wink to “lawn furniture” – a circular doily of actual lawn!

There were more containers arrayed around the terrace. I loved the yellow allamanda mixed with pink begonias in this one, also featuring canna and alocasia….

Today, more than 45% of men after the age of 40 suffer from erectile dysfunction, a repeated inability to gain https://unica-web.com/archive/2017/unica2017-palmares-2.html buy brand cialis and keep sufficient erection needed for satisfying sex. It is a medicine viagra wholesale price used to give sexual desire to men who suffers from erectile dysfunction. Tension is a major feature of patients with get cialis prostatitis. Synthetic drugs: wikipedia reference buy viagra online or Sildenafil, viagra, buy viagra online or Vardenafil: The only approved chemicals for ED, unica-web.com, work in the office or home and execute any kind of work. ….. and the bright orange of the guzmania in this one…..

…. and the red allamanda picking up the colour splash of the caladium in this one.

Kellie had set up a patio table with refreshments for us, including iced red hibiscus tea. And she’d arranged one of the prettiest floral tablescapes I’ve ever seen, with green hydrangea blossoms set atop hosta leaves.

Then she took a few moments to tell us about the garden and her history of getting into garden design. She mentioned that the garden was often used to host fundraising events for the school that she started in Tanzania, the O’Brien School for the Maasai. As we sipped our drinks, she related how it had come about.

(I have quoted most of the following from the history section on the school’s website. “

In 2006, Kellie and her daughter, Heather, traveled to Tanzania to go on safari, climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, and volunteer at a convent in Sanya Juu.  While there, they asked the Sisters for any other projects they could help with.  The Mother Superior at the time, Sister Dona, told them: “There is a Maasai man named Gabriel who keeps coming to us asking to help his village with a school.”  When they visited the village, they were greeted by 150 members of the Maasai tribe.  A few men stood before Kellie and offered their most prized possession, their land, to her if she vowed to build a school for their children. As Kellie looked around at the many children who were at home during school hours, she and her daughter knew what they must do.  They discovered that their real purpose of their trip to Africa was to give the children of that village hope for the future. Ten days later, they returned to the village and designed the school on the back of an envelope.  When they left Tanzania just two days later, concrete blocks and sand were already in place to begin construction.  They are now at their student capacity of 420, ninety percent of whom are Maasai, and celebrate graduating classes each year.

Our thirst quenched, it was time to explore the back garden, via a beautiful cobble pathway through shade plantings…

…where an island bed (or maybe ‘peninsula bed’ is a better term) extended into the lawn….

…. and featured beautifully-grown hostas under the shade of big trees.

I adored this rattan chaise lounge, and could imagine bringing a book out here to nod off reading…..

…or maybe relaxing on this Luytens bench…..

But Kellie isn’t only about tropicals and manicured hedges in her garden. She had a lovely little potager at the very back, its paths mulched with straw dampened from the rain, and vegetables growing in abundance….

…. including cherry tomatoes tied to handsome stakes.

Then it was time to say goodbye. And this is a good time to say “Thank you” to all those people, like Kellie, who generously open their gardens to passionate fellow gardeners so we can look and learn and enjoy.

An Illinois Flower Garden

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One of the joys of participating in the annual symposium of the Garden Writers Association (GWA) is the opportunity to tour local gardens. It’s especially fun to visit private gardens where the owner is clearly a long-time, passionate gardener – and the garden is big enough to accommodate a few busloads of visitors at a time. That was the case in August when we visited Susan Beard’s wonderful 3-1/2 acre garden in Oak Brook, Illinois, in Chicago’s western suburbs. Though the Beards have lived on the property for 37 years, the frame house is one they built in 1996.  And the welcome couldn’t have been more flowery!

Flanking the driveway was a sea of blackeyed susans (Rudbeckia hirta) – the old-fashioned biennials, not the fancy perennials.

The entrance to the back garden at the end of the driveway was announced by a bench, birdhouse and picket fence…..

…. and a planting of ‘Queen Lime’ and pink zinnias and butterfly bush (Buddleia davidii).

I loved this chartreuse and magenta combination!  And this was just the first of scores of birdhouses in Susan’s garden.

Inside the fence, the garden dips steeply to one side via flagstone steps.  On the stairs, ‘Margarita’ sweet potato vine (Ipomoea batatas) was deployed as a brilliant edging.

Down below I could see a lime-green Tiger Eye sumac (Rhus typhina ‘Bailtiger’) and a bridge over a damp part of the garden.

Here’s a closer look at the bridge.

There is dampness here…..

….. and Susan takes advantage of the moist soil with swamp hibiscus (H. moscheutos) doing its beautiful, late summer thing in shades of white….

….. and cranberry-red.

Back up near the house, zinnias are such cheerful flowers and Susan used them throughout the garden, including here as an edging.

The honey bees approved!

Around the corner flanking the house was another visually stunning edging of Japanese hakone grass (Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’) – another one of Susan’s mainstays.  And I liked the way the flagstone pavers are set flush into the soft lawn, rather than forming just another hard surface.

Ahead was Susan’s swimming pool, set on an interesting angle and framed by a stone sitting wall and a split-rail fence with the main garden behind.  Long ago, the pool was bright blue, but she had it painted it black so it wouldn’t be an eyesore.

There’s a good patch of lawn here, but the main show is from flowers grown in a lovely, informal, cottage garden style.

The view looking into the back garden was an August tapestry of hydrangeas, summer phlox and blackeyed susans……

……… with the occasional obelisk bearing purple clematis.

This was the swimming pool view towards the house.

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We were welcomed into her kitchen with homemadc cakes and cookies!

But there was still much to see and I returned to the garden. I passed another birdhouse and more waterfall-like hakonechloa.  Although flowers create colour throughout the growing season, Susan has included lots of conifers in the borders for bird habitat and visual interest and structure throughout Chicago’s long winter.

A birdbath sits amidst blackeyed susans.

Then it was into the woods: a mature forest containing oak, shagbark hickory, ash and hawthorn……

….. and some lovely pieces of metal sculpture.

Susan has cleared away some of the understory here to create a beautiful shade garden.

There are lots of native ferns and buckeyes…..

…… and piles of firewood left in place (which attract fireflies).

Another lovely fish sculpture graces the forest garden.

When Susan’s six grandchildren were young, they played hide-and-seek on the paths through the forest and gardens.  And I’ll bet they loved this garden house.

With so much shade here, hostas are used extensively (300 varieties!), along with native plants like Solomon’s seal.

The compost heaps and nursery plant area even have their own gated section!

New plantings here are carefully mulched…..

…. with the abundant leaves shed each year.

Though the woodland is predominantly green, garden art supplies a little brilliant colour.

According to a story in the Chicago Tribune, the forest garden owes much to Susan’s late father, a retired U.S. Air Force general from Santa Barbara who needed a project when he visited long ago, so used a chainsaw to begin the process of clearing the edges of the woodland. And it was from her father’s garden that Susan brought back the naked ladies or surprise lilies (Lycoris squamigera) that were just moving past their prime in the photo below.

Soon we were out of the forest and back into the garden via another stone path edged with invaluable hakone grass…..

….. and found our way to the comfy teak tables beside the pool where we relaxed until the call to load up the buses that would take us to the next stop on our tour of Chicago’s beautiful western suburbs.

La Casita Moradita de Tequila

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There’s no question that the most unusual garden I’ve ever visited – and not just on my Austin tour this May– is the one belonging to the inimitable Lucinda Hutson.

Yes, that Lucinda Hutson. The Austinite who might be the world’s leading authority on tequila, pulque, mescal, margaritas – and of course VIVA!  Because Lucinda is certainly an expert on what Mexicans would call alegría de vivir or what the French could call joie de vivre. Meaning, of course, that life is a party and it’s meant to be lived joyously and in full colour. Preferably with tequila, the subject of her latest book, Viva Tequila, a truly fabulous read on one of the world’s favourite licores. 

The video below in Lucinda’s own voice gives an idea of the breadth of the book.

So let’s take our own tour of Lucinda’s wonderful garden and casita moradita (“little purple house”), where she has lived and gardened for 41 years.  Imagine a passionate-purple house from the 1940s with a funky cottage garden out front and a Mexican cantina out back.  Well, actually, you don’t have to imagine: here it is.  Taken together, her ‘Texicana’ house and garden pay homage not just to the colour purple, but to sandia (watermelon), papaya, mango and the brilliant colours of the Mexican barrio, yellow and turquoise.  And notice the hues that Lucinda is wearing match that arch perfectly! That’s colores style.

Her front garden palette, unsurprisingly, features lots of purples (Salvia guaranitica ‘Amistad’), as well as blues and pinks.

And the ‘Amistad’ sage, unsurprisingly, always features bees (and hummingbirds).

There are lots more heat-loving sages in the front garden. Here one is paired with the unusual blooms of bat-face cuphea (Cuphea llavea).

There are all kinds of chairs and benches in Lucinda’s gardens where you can sit and enjoy the view — and in this case, the delicious perfume of Confederate jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminioides).   Love this colour combination.

And this on the shawl below.

Every detail is thought out, including the broken Mexican crockery beneath the pelargonium.

The fish tile leads us down the side of the house into Lucinda’s Mermaid Grotto.

What a lovely spot for sitting and listening to the trickle of water in the pond.

There are lots of sirenas here, amidst seashells and mother-of-pearl! The succulents are arranged to look like plants at the bottom of the sea.

And, of course, fishy chairs in turquoise-and-orange……

…and seashore-themed coffee tables.

Just another mermaid, but this one fashioned from Haitian oil drums.

As we toured, Lucinda’s cat Sancho did his morning grooming under bougainvillea.

What lovely colour sense she has, created sometimes with small gestures that catch the eye.

“Our Lady of La Tina” (the bathtub goddess) has the job of protecting the garden.

Near the back of the house is the raised vegetable-herb garden. Lucinda grew up in El Paso, Texas in the desert, surrounded by cacti and gravel. She developed her love of herbs and old-fashioned, bright flowers during her travels in Mexico. Look at how simple…..

…..flowers like zinnias and marigolds — both Mexican natives — create a fiesta-like atmosphere.  Lucinda freely admits that her gardens are anything but low-maintenance. “This is a water-intensive garden that requires hours with the hoses in the summer, despite my drip system — so many pots and nooks and crannies.”  She credits the help of her “wonderful, like-minded gardener from Mexico who shares his culture and ideas with me, and we have so much fun!”

She learned how to cook with Mexican flair, using herbs fresh from her garden.  Those culinary delights were featured in her Herb Garden Cookbook, which was published in 1992. Her articles have also appeared in Food and Wine, Food Arts, Fine Gardening, Horticulture, The Herb Companion, Kitchen Garden, Organic Gardening and Southern Living. Isn’t that rustic bench lovely…..

….with its cushions of hermosas flores!

Mexican pottery is also displayed throughout the garden.

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Lucinda invited us to crush the allspice leaves, one of many tender plants she grows for her cookery. She moves this one into the greenhouse for winter.

Even the trash corner looks festive in her garden, with that purple clapboard and blown glass behind it.

Children’s folk-art chairs are arrayed on the wall, as is the custom in parts of Mexico.

Now we’ve come to fiesta central, the deck that hosts Lucinda’s famous parties and salsa dancing. Behind is her writing studio.

This is the buffet/bar.  Wouldn’t you love to be invited to a party here?

Now we’re in Lucinda’s Tequila Cantina, her homage to all things tequila. The vignette below would be perfect for the annual Dio de los Muertos celebrated by Mexicans (and Austinites) on November 1st.

Her collection of tequila bottles, glasses and accessories is epic.

More turquesa!

I’ve seen a lot of bottle trees in southern and southwest gardens, but none as evocative of lime and salt as this tree, appropriately mulched with corks!

Leading from the garden into the kitchen is the Stairway of Dreams. Come on in! (Lucinda said it’s okay….)

There are sleek, granite-countered kitchens, then there’s Lucinda’s wonderful, funky kitchen. I cannot imagine how many comidas deliciosas began in this colourful place!

Nor how many of her special Mexican martinis were mixed at this cabinet.

What a wonderful dining room for entertaining friends in Austin winters.

And, of course, there’s an agave chandelier overhead.

The Mexican punched-tin lamp sports its own adornments.

And there is folk art galore all around, from a lifetime of collecting in Mexico.

Her living room is cozy (and rosy).

Even the bathroom window is a seaside fantasy.

My last stop on the house tour was the bedroom, where purple walls and gorgeous bed linens create a kind of sueño mexicano.

Then it was time to say adios to our lovely hostess.

But that wasn’t the last time we’d see Lucinda during our fling. She was signing books the next night at our farewell party at the fabulous shop and venue, Articulture. Viva Tequila! is such a good read, part history, part botany, part cookbook, part cocktail primer and all fun — highly recommended.  (When I photographed her below, she had discovered I was Canadian and was regaling me with her love of the singer Ian Tyson. I think she even sang a few bars of one of his songs!)

I adore Mexico and have visited many regions over the past four decades. So here’s a margarita toast (straight from the beach in Manzanillo) to Lucinda Hutson and her exuberant spirit. Salud!

And since we can’t hear the mariachi bands that have surely graced Lucinda’s parties in her El Jardín Encantador, here’s a trio from a favourite restaurant in Cozumel, Casa Mission, singing my very favourite Spanish song.  I dedicate it to her.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdNsM24JCak