Japanese garden pictures.

Goodmorning everybody!

We are having some gorgeous days and that started already end of last week.
And what about some good news first before we start talking about the Japanese garden?
Saturday often we get some bills in the mail( looks if companies and such just LOVE to spoil our weekends with it, hahaha), but this time it was rather a nice one. It was the annual settlement of the energy(gas and electricity), and yes. we get some money back from the monthly contribution we payed last year. Yeah, I can dig that kind of bills. And also they reuced the sum of the monthly amount. Now let's just hope it will not end up next year into paying extra again when we will receive the annual settlement.
But for the moment it brough a smile to my face.

Back to Friday then.
We got up rather early, because we had planned to go to the park with the Japanese section in it and gosh, we really acted as we had planned!
We first took the tram to town centre, and decided we as well could walk to the park then take a bus. We always could take it along the way But the weather was so nice, and the route to it also so why not take advantage of that beautiful weather?
I think it took us about half an hour to arrive at the parc. It was so nice and relaxing to walk there, with all tress coevered in fresh green leaves, birds chirping, just wonderful.
After perhaps 15 minutes we arrived at the lane leading to the Japanese garden. And already that was a treat. Along both sides there were so much different Rhododendron bushes, all flowering in all kind of colors.
( I am always a bit confused about the difference between Rhododendrons and Azaleas, so I looked it up, again, and here a little explanation.
The diffenece between rhododendron and azalea:
All azaleas are rhododendrons but not all rhododendrons are azaleas. Azaleas have been reclassified and are now in the genus Rhododendron. There are no clear cut lines for distinguishing all azaleas from all rhododendrons but here are a few characteristics to look for.

True rhododendrons have 10 or more stamens which is 2 per lobe. Azaleas usually have 5 stamens or 1 per lobe. Azaleas have 5 lobes in a flower.

Azaleas tend to have appressed hairs which is hair parallel to the surface of the leaf. This is particularly true along the midrib on the underside of the leaf. It is easily seen in "evergreen" azaleas. True rhododendrons instead of hair are often scaly or have small dots on the under side of the leaf. Azalea leaves are never dotted with scales and are frequently pubescent.

Many azaleas are deciduous. True rhodi's are usually evergreen with the exceptions of R. mucronulatum and R. dauricum.Azaleas have tubular funnel or funnel shaped flowers. Rhodi flowers tend to be bell-shaped.)
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Then a little bit of the history of this particular garden:

The magnificent Japanese Garden in Clingendael Park is open to the public twice a year, in the spring and autumn. Admission is free.

History

The Japanese Garden was created in the beginning of the 20th century by the former owner of the country estate of Clingendael, Marguérite M. Baroness van Brienen (1871-1939), also called Lady Daisy. Lady Daisy sailed off a number of times by ship to Japan and brought back to the Netherlands a number of lanterns, a water cask, sculptures, the pavilion, the little bridges and several plants.
The original design with the serene pond, meandering brook and the winding pathways has remained intact all these years.
The Municipality of The Hague has always taken great care of the Japanese Garden because of its uniqueness and tremendous historical value. The garden was placed on the list of national historical monuments in 2001. Due to its fragility, the garden can be visited only during a short period of the year.
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I made quite some photos so I will show a some today and will save some for next post.

Here some pics of the lane leading towards the garden.

Amazing how big some of them are. But some of the rhodo's are already there for decades.

That;s all for now, but next post there will be more.
We took our time in the rather small garden, because if you really want to enjoy it, you just have to pay attention to the details too.
When done there, we took a walk through the parc around it, which is lovely too.
After we spent a nice time there, it was about time to go home. Ahhhh, decision to make. Take the bus or walk first to centre of town?
Well, we both were still rather fit, so we said"let;s walk". Very nice walk, because it is an area ofthe town, we don;t visit too often, beautiful houses there(expenxive too, oh yes!), with some beautiful gardens around it, so an agreable walk to do.
Naturally we overrated a bit our condition, LOL, so finally in centre of town, we first treated ourselves to a portion of french fries with mayonnaise, yummie. We found a bench to sit, so our legs could have a pause too. Then we "dragged"ourselves to the tram and went home. By that time I was kind of pooped out, but had such a satisfied feeling about the day, it didn;t matter. Wow. the couch felt good, probably too good, because I soon took a nap and a bit later Jan too and we didn;t wake up till around 18/30 a.m.!!! Who cares, we just needed that nap, and nobody was waiting for us in the evening.

I do have to go out to get me some groceries, but that will be done quick, it looks to be another gorgeous day, so I want to take a bit of time to just sit in the garden, swallow in some sun, enjoying the little walk to see if there is a new bud opening , and how much some plants have grown in a day(yes, you actualle can see of some the difference in a day, believe it or not!).
Perhaps later in the afternoon I will do some ironing of laundry, it should be done, but..............
Then here the second part of the kit Breathless, of which I will have Arlene's clusters in the next post too. Oh and Linda already made a lovely quickpage too.
Have a wonderful day !

Download    part 2  HERE