Thai jungle

The thing that inspires me most with my type of garden is pure unadulterated jungle. I am to try and replicate this type of naturalism so that when you go outside you are escaping to something wild, and certainly not a manicured English garden. The easy things to take from this is about the lack of flowers, and when they are used they are sparing. There is a lot of green and big leaves, and leaves with interesting shapes with a lot of repetition. 

You feel small and know how nature is certainly boss.

An iridescent blue selaginella (similar to moss)

Ganesha

As you can probably tell I'm spending a lot of time on Wikimedia this week and in particular am completely in love with the Tropenmuseum collection of old photos which are great inspiration.

Today a reveling on Ganesha one of my favorite Hindu gods who I have always been drawn to. A large Balinese sculpture sits on a plinth at the top of the stairs, and he was one of the first things to go into the garden. As a God associated with being a creator and destroyer he is good for new ventures, so it all seems very fitting, and once in the rest of the garden kind of flowed. He is also found across South East Asia and I have a smaller Cambodian statue which sits in the lower garden.

However by far my favorite style of Ganesha is Javanese, closely followed by Balinese with my complete favorite being a huge statue in the national museum in Bangkok, so it was very exciting to find these fabulous pictures which I hope you enjoy!

Hotter inspiration

Its cold, drizzly and very dark in the mornings, so my mind is wandering to far away places. I do have a bit of a Bali obsession, and in particular Bali in the 30's/40's so I was excited to come across these great photos which I think are fabulously atmospheric and inspiring...they are certainly succeeding in taking me to somewhere that isn't a grey Camberwell!

 

All photos by Paul Spies and are from the Tropenmuseum in the Netherlands. you can see them here