Urban Gardens

01/09/2026

First King Cake of the 2026 Mardi Gras season!

05/15/2025

04/18/2025

When my husband and I were searching for a special Paris restaurant to celebrate my birthday and our recent marriage, I reached out to food journalist and author Wendy Lyn of for a recommendation. I’d just purchased her “little black book of where she sends friends to eat, drink, and explore in Paris,” Rainy Day Paris,” that chick full of her faves, but Wendy narrowed it down to one: .restaurant
Brothers Julien and Nicolas Durand, owner chefs, along with Julia Durand up front, serve innovative modern French dishes in a laid back setting that was the perfect choice for our romantic celebratory evening.

My starter was an artistic blend of textures: freshly shelled delicate and thinly sliced crab served with artichokes beside a mound of slightly crunchy dashi shavings, and bits of katsuobuchi.

My main course, a pousette—a young ckicken—was plated with white asparagus and anchovies. Sixth generation chicken farmer Pascal Cosnet raises the unusually tender birds on his farm, Cour d’Armoise near Le Mans. He feeds his free range chickens on grains produced on the farm, fortified with essential oils and more than 25 wild plants from his natural, protected site.

For dessert, we forced ourselves to share a soft creme caramel topped with crunchy Tonka beans and caramelized almonds. The perfect culmination of a perfect Parisian evening.

03/07/2025

👑 Did you know you can stay at this gorgeous palazzo on the Grand Canal? Scroll to the bottom of the post for information on how to channel your inner royalty. 🇮🇹

Step back centuries into the Palazzo Capello Malipiero Barnabò, the Countess Anna Barnabò's sumptuous antique-filled palace and gardens.

03/01/2025

An innovative way to green public spaces and generate clean energy: Floating gardens with solar panels on the roofs above public parking. This is great. What do you think?

In Japan, they have begun installing floating gardens on public parking lots' roofs, turning these areas into green spaces. These gardens beautify the urban setting and provide crucial habitats for bees and other pollinators, essential for biodiversity. 🌱🍂

This green initiative seeks to mitigate the effects of concrete in cities, offer a wildlife refuge, and improve air quality. Parking lot gardens represent a step towards urban sustainability, highlighting the importance of nature in urban spaces.

Photo source: Media Group

01/21/2025

First time in 100 years. All of 😏New Orleans shut down for three days. Nonetheless, friends visiting from California still had a wonderful time. We did these things before, during, and after the snow:

➡️ Vistied the The National WWII Museum
➡️ Enjoyed beignets at Café Du Monde in the French Quarter and also in New Orleans City Park
➡️ Strolled through the New Orleans Museum of Art and the Besthoff Sculpture Garden.
➡️ Dined at la petite grocery and Pascal's Manale Restaurant
➡️ Shopped at the cool stores on Magazine Street
➡️ Heard great music at Chickie WAH WAH
➡️ Toured the Garden District's stately mansions and famous cemeteries. You can take this guided tour: https://fave.co/3FljxrT

Visit New Orleans New Orleans & Company

05/15/2024

☘️On my recent trip to Northern Ireland, I visited Hillsborough Castle and Gardens, the British monarch's official residence in Northern Ireland. Head gardener Claire Woods led us on a private tour of the sprawling castle gardens, whose more than 100 acres include a restored 18th-century walled garden alongside ornate formal gardens, woodlands, winding streams, and meadows.

🏰The historic castle gardens, developed from the 1760s onward, underwent a complete redevelopment before reopening to the public in 2019.

🥀Gardeners have restored the 4-acre walled garden to its original 4-quadrant layout. It’s now a productive garden with a dipping pond, crop rotations, seasonal produce, herbaceous borders, and an apple orchard. It’s bursting with blooming flowers, herbs, and organic produce, much of it harvested to serve in Hillsborough’s restaurant.

🍐Espalier fruit trees, some of which were planted over 100 years ago, include varieties such as the Pitmaston Duchess, large long conical pears, and Docteur Jules Guyot, an early pointed, slightly squat pear. 🍏 The gardeners cultivate Irish heritage apple varieties, including the Kilkenny Pearmain, a dual-purpose variety grown in Ireland since the 19th century. They are also growing another heritage apple, the Bloody Butcher, aka Lamb's apple, first recorded in County Kilkenny, Ireland, in the 1800s. It was lost and then recovered in the 1940s by Dr. J.G.D. Lamb, a noted collector of Irish heritage apples, and made available by the Irish Seed Savers.

👑Since 1872, to mark their coronation, the Royal Family has planted around 61 trees on the grounds of Hillsborough Castle--always a Tilia henryana, commonly known as Henry's lime. 🌳The first tree was planted in 1928 by Princess Mary (Viscountess Lascelles), and the most recent two in 2022 and 2023 by King Charles III, just as Queen Elizabeth II did in 1953.

Thank you to our guide Trevor Edwards Gardens for his excellent knowledge of gardens and Irish history.

Discover Northern Ireland

Trevor Edwards Gardens

04/30/2024

🪴Attention landscape and garden lovers🌱
Although viewing Zimbabwe's diverse wildlife on safari is one of its biggest draws, the country is also home to dramatic natural landscapes and some extraordinary gardens.

Join us on a virtual visit to this interesting country, where we will experience the destination through the eyes of some of the country's most important local artists.

Tourism Zimbabwe

Join us on a virtual visit for travel tales of Zimbabwe told by the country's important local artists in painting and sculpture.

03/18/2024

Wow.

At 3pm today the Amorphophallus titanum at San Diego Botanic Garden opened its bloom!! Biggest flower in the world! (Named the co**se flower because of the rancid smell of the flowers that attracts the carcass-eating insects that pollinate it.)
Most of these plants take 7-10 years to first bloom, Then after the 1st bloom every 4-5 years thereafter. The fully opened bloom lasts around 48 hours. This one is 14 yrs old & last bloomed in 2018. Native to Sumatra.
Read More👇🏻
https://truupy.com/a-perplexed-and-unbelievable-friendship-has-formed-between-an-owl-and-a-cat/

Credit goes to the respective owners
Follow Birds and Animals

03/06/2024

🍅 Have limited space but would like to grow a flourishing indoor food garden that produces bountiful harvests of fresh, homegrown vegetables, fruits, herbs, and flowers ready to pick on demand?

🥬 You can do this with the Gardyn 3.0 hydroponic indoor garden-- an AI-enabled hydroponic system capable of cultivating 30 full-size plants in just two square feet. 🍓 Its smart functions make food-growing neophytes look like expert indoor farmers in as little as six weeks. 🥬 See for yourself:

https://bit.ly/3P5yLne

02/06/2024

♥️ Feel the love, Soilmates 💘
Show your affection with a unique gift from our Valentine's Day gift guide filled with cool offerings for your sweetheart, lover, bestie, or other recipient of your ardor. https://bit.ly/4bvIXPd