How much will you miss outdoor gardening in the next few months?

It's worse for us than it is for you! Moving on from the first to the fourth of the seven sins, I don’t know if we can survive the poisoned envy caused by our current interlude. Having been informed this morning (28/11/2024) by video call that her vegetable patch was one big sheet of translucent ice, Mrs Lao went viridian when she saw this bouquet of fluorescent cabbages flowering in the late November sun:

 

When starting this thread ‘How Much Will You Miss Gardening …?’, I had not thought that gardens other than one’s own would provide so much solace, even though it implies seeking them out, sometimes far afield.

Our search for warmth (sorry, @CarolineL), provides us with a re-evaluation of gardens and their resonance vis-à-vis the houses they adorn, particularly where, in Islamic design, there is a kind of sacred conversation via a cyclic va-et-vient when, through windows and doorways, the gardens’ symbols and motifs enter the houses and palaces, filigree themselves onto the ceilings and walls and then, in a reversed process, re-invite you, through the same windows, into the initial outside spaces, the columns evoking tree trunks, their capitals providing the bases for branches and crowns, and the tiles offering blooms of open flowers. It is a blessing that the Alhambra’s crowd-control and well-timed visits allow sufficient leisure for such contemplation:

 

For a rainy day, although not necessarily:

When, one Christmas, our children asked to do something along the lines illustrated in the first video, we thought they would soon lose interest. How wrong we were.

Particularly illuminating is the way she takes the geometry outside the initial circle, creating patterns in as-yet-unsuspected fields. It is rather slow but, once watched (or, better still, emulated), you’ll never again look at a flower or the section of an orange in the same way:

analysis of islamic design youtube - Recherche Google

This one, by Eric Bourg, more colourful, requires no personal involvement, just sheer illuminated enjoyment:

analysis of islamic design youtube - Recherche Google