While outside of Beijing, I paid a visit to Yuan Ming, the old summer palace. I expected a beautiful royal garden. Descriptions led me to expect ruins surrounded by a garden; how beautiful I thought. Instead I found something quite different. An unsettling reminder of the complex history between China and the West...
Read MoreFarm goes wild
To visit Duke Farms in New Jersey is to experience a place that is coming full circle. And the Hay Barn in particular captures the history of this place: the early farming days of JB Duke, elements of a picturesque plan, the style and glamour of Doris Duke, and the return of the garden back to native plants...
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If any garden completely embodies the history of its place, this one does. This landscape tells several stories: of the founding of a trading post by the Dutch East India Company, of the displacement of the native Khoekhoen people, of a garden and town built by slaves, of the country’s first synagogue, and of the establishment of the national government. The Garden also...
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