Even More On Gardens
Part 3: A riad, a vineyard and a botanical garden
Three more gardens, three continent continents, one plant junkie. Let’s get to it.
If you’re reading this on email, click the title to see the photos in full resolution on Substack. Part 1 and 2 are here:
Le Jardin Secret
Marrakech, Morroco
Le Jardin Secret was built as a riad in the early 19th century by Kaid al-Hajj U-Bihi, head of the Haha tribe. It later became home to Mohammed Loukrissi, head of Marrakesh's watchmakers guild, who lived here with his three wives until his death in 1934. After decades of abandonment, the riad underwent eight years of meticulous restoration beginning in 2008, renovating not just the gardens but the ingenious khettara—an 11th-century underground irrigation system that channels water from the Atlas Mountains through tunnels to the city's mosques, hammams, and select privileged riads.
Stepping through the doorway feels like entering an oasis—the chaos of vendors shouting prices and mopeds honking replaced by the sound of water trickling through marble channels. I sit at the fountain in the middle and take it all in. The garden follows the classic chahar bagh design, with four quadrants divided by water channels, which represent the four rivers and gardens of paradise in Islamic text. The water channels are not only decorative—the same water also feeds the house, with water rills raised above the planted beds so they can spill over and irrigate the pomegranates, dates, and orange trees.
Unlike national or palace gardens built for show, Le Jardin Secret operates at a human scale, that’s what I love about it. This was a grand riad yes, but it was still a house where a family lived. The garden captures what made these riads work as social spaces: intimate enough for daily life, formal enough for receiving guests, and everywhere that careful balance between symbolism and domestic function.
I imagine how centuries ago, in the dense maze of Marrakech’s medina, these hidden gardens weren't escapes from the city but the city's hidden souls—private worlds where architecture, water, and plants merged into spaces for both relaxation and everyday living.
Vergelegen Estate
Western Cape, South Africa
I took my friends to the Vergelegen Estate for a wine tasting and to enjoy the views of the enormous estate. This is, after all, a 3,000-hectare property with 17 formal gardens, a nature reserve with cleared fynbos, and a working wine farm producing some very tasty wines. But I had ulterior motives, I really wanted to see some really really old trees.
Vergelegen Estate was established in 1700 by Willem Adriaan van der Stel, then Cape Governor, who transformed 150 hectares of barren land into what he envisioned as a model farm—complete with irrigation systems, cattle stations, orchards, and half a million vine stocks. Van der Stel planted five camphor trees between 1700 and 1706, which still stand today as 320-year-old giants.
Standing beneath the camphor trees, time becomes visible—their trunks so massive you'd need eight people holding hands to encircle them. The cool thing is these aren't the only ancient bad boys here: there’s a 300-year-old English oak (believed to be Africa's oldest) and an Outeniqua yellowwood from the same era. These trees are older than the United States, older than Mozart, and sprouted when Louis XIV ruled at Versailles and pirates ruled the Caribbean seas. That’s pretty cool.
Sipping a rosé and a red on the terrace with amazing views to the mountains, and watching families walk around and picnic in the gardens, I can’t help but give Vergelegen the award for the most beautiful vineyard I’ve ever been to. And it captures what makes South African wine country unique—this layering of deep colonial history with the Cape’s raw beauty, all in a hospitality melting pot.
Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
The Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden was founded on June 13, 1808, by Dom João VI, the Portuguese prince regent who had fled Napoleon's invasion and established his court in Brazil. Originally created as an acclimatization garden for economically valuable spices from the East Indies (nutmeg, cinnamon, pepper), the garden evolved into one of the world's most important research centers for tropical botany and conservation. Today, the 140-hectare UNESCO Biosphere Reserve houses over 6,500 species across landscaped gardens and preserved Atlantic Forest, with collections including 900 varieties of palms, thousands of orchids and bromeliads.
I went to the garden to see the famous Victoria amazonica water lilies whose leaves can reach six feet in diameter and support the weight of a small child. They’re pretty cool to look at, and apparently they smell nice too—their white flowers release a pineapple-y scent. Walking down the Avenue of Royal Palms, I kept craning my neck at those 30-meter sentinels planted in perfect rows, and I got why this became the model for botanical gardens worldwide. The palms frame views of Christ the Redeemer on Corcovado Mountain above, while behind you have the preserved Mata Atlântica— the second largest moist forest area in the world. I even saw toucans fly by. It honestly felt too pretty.
The garden doesn't fight Rio's spectacular geography but collaborates with it. Rio is already one of the most absurdly beautiful places in the world, with its Sugarloaf Mountain, sandy beaches, forest spilling down granite cliffs. The garden simply frames the views while showcasing the amazing diversity of Brazilian flora. It’s such a great place to sit at a bench, look around and process the fact that you're in a city where such beauty is just normal, like there’s people reading their newspapers and running errands while this piece of the world has these palm trees, these bromeliads, this two-hundred-year-old Brazilwood tree, the literal tree that gave Brazil its name, nearly extinct from overexploitation, now protected and blooming in the garden while people grab their morning coffee. Crazy.
postscript 📮
What's the oldest tree you've seen?
Which garden would you revisit tomorrow?
How many plant photos are currently clogging your phone?