The Huntington – Japanese and Chinese Gardens

I recently attended the Garden Writers Association’s annual symposium in Pasadena. It was wonderful. I learned a lot, saw great gardens and met nice people. I was hoping to write about it for the February back page of Alabama Gardener magazine, but I can’t find an angle, and I’ve only got one funny story. I’ll just tell you. But it needs a little background/reminder.

I went to 2015 Spring Plant Trials with Dan Heims, president of Terra Nova Nurseries. (If you want to read the post that I’m about to partially repeat, here’s a link.) One of the many things I learned was that Clivia doesn’t rhyme with trivia. The first I is long, which means it says its name, “I”. For the purpose of this story, I’ll spell the incorrect pronunciation clivia and the correct pronunciation ClIvia.

The Garden Writers were at the Hunington Botanical Gardens, and four of us were chatting. Well, mainly the other three were chatting about how important it is to correctly pronounce the Latin names of plants. I butcher the Latin names. I don’t even try most of them; I just tell people how it’s spelled. Anyway, this was not a conversation in which I should have participated. One woman said that she had taken four years of Latin so she could be precise with her articulation. They talked about commonly mispronounced names, like Clematis. Then I remembered what Dan taught me, and I said, “I recently learned that ClIvia is pronounced ClIvia. I’d been calling it clivia.” The woman with four years of Latin said, “I pronounce it clivia too.” Then she paused, and I could practically see the wheels turning in her head as she reviewed the rules of Latin. “You’re right. It is ClIvia….Well, this is embarrassing.”

I probably shouldn’t think that other people’s humiliation is funny, but I do. Personally, I’m almost never embarrassed, even when I should be. I don’t think embarrassment serves a purpose. I deal with my mortifying moments by thinking, ‘Oh shit! That was stupid. I probably shouldn’t do that again.’ Then I tell my BFF Trace, and we laugh.

Anyway, back to Huntington Gardens, the heat was brutal. I went where it was shady, the Japanese and the Chinese gardens. Then I went in air-conditioned buildings until I caught the first bus back to the hotel. The light was a bit intense, but here are my best pictures:

Awesome. Right?!?! I was also impressed by their pathways.

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One last picture of the fountain I saw on my way out.

I’ll do a couple more posts about this trip. I want to show you some of the great gardens and my favorite part of the trip – all the free stuff I brought home!