This summer I'm heading to the movies to enjoy some of the world's most beautiful gardens. My travel partner and guide is British garden guru, Monty Don, and the movies are his horticultural travelogues from the BBC series "Around the World in 80 Gardens". Recall we traveled with Monty several years ago (see Summer Movies 2016: Australia and New Zealand). Then, we explored locations with a Mediterranean climate; this year we're broadening our horizons to several exotic locations (blame it on the pandemic)! I'm hoping to have some fun, and learn more about movie star plants and gardens from these different locations. Grab your sunscreen and a hat, and join us for some summer travelling!
Bangkok, Singapore, and Bali (2008, Episode 10)
Today we head for Southeast Asia, where Monty's quest is to find the perfect tropical jungle garden that has served as a model for Western gardeners, since the nineteenth century. He starts in Bangkok, Thailand by visiting Jim Thompson's Garden (an American entrepreneur who thrived in the Thai silk industry, and then disappeared into the jungle in 1967). He built an estate and tropical garden in the heart of Bangkok using palms, gingers, lotus, water features, and Thai hardscape. It was his vision of what a jungle could be, but not necessarily an indigenous Thai garden.
Next Monty visits the Thai Grand Palace Garden, where he is surprised by lots of topiary, and then the Chitralada Royal Villa, where the king uses the grounds to experiment with sustainable food production for his subjects, growing different crops such as mung beans, peanuts, and rice. Monty notes that the garden focuses completely on the practical and not on aesthetics. Its lab studies how to preserve Thai's indigenous plants (in the past, you would not cultivate a jungle, rather try to fight it back).
Finally he visits the Khlong Gardens along the canals and waterways of Bangkok. Plants are everywhere, including those used to flavor food. His guide, actress Patravadi Mejudhon, informs him that people want the plants, but don't necessarily want to garden - it's too hot! Monty reflects over stir fry in the evening that the exotic may be what we can't grow, more of a state of mind than a garden style. In Bangkok, gardens grow so fast that that there isn't really a style - it is just whatever grows!
Next, Monty travels by train south to Singapore. Forty-plus years ago Singapore started a campaign for the greening of the city. Singapore had grown so fast, it had become a "gray jungle" of concrete. The goal was to turn the city into a garden. Gardens, parks, and recreational spaces were developed on a large scale, and citizens were encouraged to garden. Monty interviews Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew and Dr. Lawrence Leong Chee Chien, both influential in the movement to green Singapore. He also interviews blogger and activist, Wilson Wong, who promotes Community Gardens for growing food. Monty leaves Singapore without finding his model tropical jungle garden, and a little depressed by all the orchids in the Singapore airport (we may part company here).
Monty flies to Bali to continue his quest for a local jungle garden. The predominate religion is a version of Hinduism that reveres nature. He visits a temple garden first, in which every plant and flower has meaning and is used in temple offerings. Monty is overwhelmed with the peace and serenity of the place. Later, in the night market, Monty sees flowers and petals for sale (the ingredients for making offerings), and notes how the spiritual is intertwined with commerce. Monty visits the garden of a mutli-family compound, and observes this same intertwining of the useful and the spiritual. He ponders whether this is really a garden.
Monty visits an estate garden, right on the beach, and concludes it fulfills all the fantasies of what Westerners want in a jungle paradise (sanitized, without any chickens wandering around). He ends his tour in the garden of Made Wijaya, a landscape architect and designer from Sydney, Australia. He specializes in tropical gardens, and blends the ancient and modern in what could be called, the Bali style. He uses color, plants, shrines, and history in his designs, to create beautiful and distinctive gardens. Monty concludes the tour with the idea that tropical jungles may be a figment of our imagination and a vacation fantasy. Mankind will always be in search of Shangri-La, but it exists only within ourselves.
I really enjoyed seeing the lush gardens of Bangkok, Singapore, and Bali, whether or not they are authentic, indigenous, or a true garden. Maybe that's the result of gardening in a dry climate, on the brink of another drought cycle. The green exotic plants and abundant water do seem like Shangri-La!
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