botanical, artistic & altitude gardens

Although it already seems ages ago, since we drove with our gardens group to the mountains, I would like to share a photo report of our second last day of the workshop.

In the morning we went to the impressive botanical garden, just outside of Marrakech. I can assure you it almost feels frustrating, because you want to take home so many plants, knowing that it is impossible. Just bring home a few cuttings would already be nice...
The amount of plants, the colors, the gigantic size of the garden, the diversity and abundance of flowers, trees, plants, cacti, make you feel like walking around in the plant paradise! You just don't want to leave this place, but we had to continue with the program and went via a rural route to the Atlas mountains and drove along fields full of poppies. Spring everywhere!

Before we went into the mountains, we made a stop at the Anima art garden. The garden, created by André Heller, is so colorful, surprising and so very different from all the places we went on our Green Gardens tour this week. After coffee and austrian cake in the cafe we continued our trip to the Ourika river and we visited the weekly local market.

When we arrived at our final destination of the day, Kasbah Bab Ourika, it was already pretty cloudy, but we were lucky to make a (vegetable) garden tour and have lunch on the terrace, before it started to rain.

We decided to have our desserts at the fireplace and had a wonderful afternoon despite the bad weather.
It was the first time that I have experienced so much rain in April in Morocco in all those years.
Well it did not spoil the fun, but I would have loved to give the participants the sight of the snowy mountains with bright blue sky, like the week before with the Cool Crochet workshop.

Even after my departure (when we had sunny spring weather in the Netherlands), it was still cold and wet in Marrakech, which is unusual for this time of year in North Africa.

The GG workshop was therefore the greenest sofar...

This was the last 'moroccan vibes' blogpost until October, thank you all for following our adventures!

between the eucalyptus & ginkgo

Summer in May, at least that's how it feels in the garden lately.

We have a new evergreen in the backyard; an Eucalyptus Gunnii tree.

The small eucalyptus stands beside the ginkgo tree on the terrace. The new tree is an evergreen tree. The small round gray-green leaves give off a delicious eucalyptus smell. Especially when the leaf is bruised, a strong eucalyptus smell is released. Good thing is, mosquitoes hate this smell, so perfect for long summer evenings in the garden.

This afternoon we planted the new evergreen, a remembrance tree for Henk's mother, who passed away yesterday.

After gardening (we also repotted some plants and sowed flowers seeds) we had a tea between the trees and it felt special...

live wild flower child

veggie shopping & veggie cooking

With its bounty of offerings on the local vegetable market in the medina, April’s 'green is the theme' was all about cooking on this day of the Green Gardens workshop.

In the morning we went with our arabic-french shopping list, made by Mohammed, to the souks. When we arrived back home with baskets full of fresh ingredients, chef Rachida was ready to give us a vegetarian cooking class on the patio in the shade of the banana trees.

With help from Rachida we added the seasonal green pops of color to our dishes and made ourselves a delicious Moroccan lunch, which we ate afterwards on the roof terrace and cooked for a crowd...

After a siesta by the plunge pool, we left at the end of the afternoon to the Secret Garden. The light is so beautiful at the end of the day and the garden is even more enchanting.

How to celebrate this green day more appropriate than in the greenest restaurant imaginable...? and Le Jardin's chocolate cake with a view on the garden and magical music was certainly a highlight of the evening.

bikes, camels & palms

On the second day of the Green Gardens workshop, we cycled on our orange bicycles to Jardin Marjorelle early in the morning. Even though I've been there dozens of times, it's overwhelming every time, especially if you are the 'first' walking around and you only hear the birds... After a few hours we continue our bike ride towards the gigantic palm grove.

In the palm grove we came across a huge group of goats and lots of camels. (a 'typical tourist thing' and normally we cycle along waving, but this time we got off and parked our bikes, because there was such a cute little camel...)

I felt very happy to see how everyone, like me, is enjoying this sporty adventure through the beautiful wide exotic nature.

In the afternoon the sun popped up again and we were having lunch in the beautiful garden (so delicious!) and the rest of the afternoon was filled with lazing in and around the amazing hotel garden, a bit of drawing sunbathing and swimming.

At the end of this lovely long GG day, we cycled back to the medina through the palm grove during sunset...