Felicia Fredlund

Writer. Editor. Reader.

garden

Picture of the Month — March 2019

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Pretty-fountain-and-interesting-perspective_Oslo-Norway-2006
The off-center sky corridor is interesting to me.

When I took the first photo above, I was 17 years old and I didn’t know much at all about taking pictures. Perhaps if I had, I’d have shifted around the fountain until the street creating the sky corridor was lined up with the middle of the main spray.

It wouldn’t have been as interesting and the sea at the bottom of the hill wouldn’t have been visible.

Both photos were taken in 2006 on a day visit to Oslo. (We drove into Norway in the morning and left late afternoon/evening.) The second photo is from Oslo Castle’s garden. Another photo from this time can be found in Picture of the Month — June 2018.

Pretty-garden_Oslo-Castle-Garden-2006
A beautiful green oasis.

Great Garden: Portland Japanese Garden

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This series of posts are about entertainment that I recommend when people ask me for recommendations. It also includes place-specific “entertainment”, such as beautiful gardens; it might be stretching the definition of entertainment, but I enjoy myself in the places I recommend.

They are not universal recommendations. I wouldn’t recommend a dark thriller to someone looking for something nice and happy; I’d recommend a romance.

They aren’t perfect or without mistakes.

Art is never finished, only abandoned. ~ Leonard da Vinci

Portland Japanese Garden

I’ve been fortunate enough to visit Portland Japanese Garden twice.

I still remember the first time.

The feeling I get is like being able to suddenly breathe very deeply. Like there is space in my chest for endless breath and with that feeling comes relaxation.

The second time I visited (May, 2018) I saw the new entrance they’d added and the culture village (as they call it).

They had a bonsai exhibition. Miniature trees that look like full grown ones. I’ve seen some amazing ones, and one of them looked like a small forest (pictured to the right).

The main garden area is divided into several different types of Japanese gardens. The most famous type of Japanese garden being the zen garden with raked gravel and rocks; Portland Japanese Garden has one of those with beautiful Japanese style historical walls closing it off from the rest of the garden and the outside.

Personally I love the wandering type of garden best. It often have a river, perhaps a waterfall; or it has the simulation of those things with pebbles. Wooden bridges to cross the water filled with colorful koi fish.

Mostly Japanese gardens are 50 shades of green. That is what I love.

Water, green shades, and some small human made details, come together to calm and refresh me.

It is also a good place to write poetry, and I’ve written some at Portland Japanese Garden, as well as in other gardens.