In the case of our beautiful garden, it’s a local object of interest, where neighbors or other people passing by, stop and admire it! So, my mother feels very proud, because she devotes much spare time in that pure enjoyment. Her garden has its own distinctive phenomenology, in which nature made obedient to her visual norms; beautiful roses (her favorites) in the center of the big gardens, accompanied with other smaller delicate flowers, planted close to the garden frames. In other places of the yard, there are clay pots with unique trees or small pots with nice colorful flowers. She has plants, flowers and herbs for every season!
Every plant has a history and we have chosen it with care; the newest flower is a yellow crocus flower from out travel to southern Greece. Also, I remember when I bought countless tulip bulbs from a trip to Netherlands; every day we were drinking our coffee at the garden, observing the beautiful tulips growing up. It was a kind of conversation with them! We take our beautiful garden as an extension of the house, mediating between the constructed environment and the world of nature. This feeds into our core experience of shapes, colors and decorations. So, we have selected specific plants and objects in the garden to conquer the space, capture the nature and to present the whole picture as ours. This attempt to match our surroundings to ourselves and ourselves to our surroundings is arguably a human universal!
For my mother, gardening is not just an optional addition to the repertoire of human activities; it’s rather the unavoidable consequence of taking life seriously and becoming truly conscious.