Garden Sketches from Mexico

Back in October 2019, we had the opportunity to travel Mexico with two dear friends. Our one friend was born in Mexico and his family hails from Guanajuato. When we arrived at the airport, we were picked up by his Aunt and Uncle and immediately swept up into family life of dinners, drinks, visits, and celebrating. It was a truly special trip that we will never forget and always cherish.

Now, that we have been at home for nine months during the COVID pandemic, I’m reflecting much more on our past trips and taking this opportunity to think more deeply about what I learned. Mexico blew the doors off my house. I had taken a couple of university Latin American history classes but I found out that those classes were just a primer to the complex, nuanced, exciting world of Mexican history – and then there’s the history of great ancient cultures of the Aztecs and the Mayan.

In fact, I’m intimidated just thinking about how I am going to write about everything I’m curious about in Mexico. Hopefully the loose ends, all the fascinating parts of Mexican culture I learned, will weave into some sort of tapestry and give a sense of why I fell in love with Mexico.

I learned on a historical walking tour that gardens in Mexico were influenced by a great Japanese imperial gardener, Tatsugoro Matsumoto who was invited to design gardens in Mexico City after his work in Peru in the late 1800s. He later imported the famous Jacaranda tree from Brazil in 1920 when designing gardens for President Obregón. Flash forward to the present and the Jacaranda tree is an important feature of neighbourhoods, especially those in Mexico City.

I noticed that trees were meticulously shaped and sculpted, their healthy green leaves would gently wiggle in the breeze. Gentle perfumes of florals and citrus lingered in the air. The greenery throughout downtown Mexico City gave me a sense of calm in the huge city that I was previously intimidated by.

I could wander the parks and gardens of León, Guanajuato, Querétero, and Mexico City all day long. Sketch, paint, people watch, and picnic with loved ones. And the fountains! Oh, the fountains…

There were also the rugged parts of Mexican landscape, that looked like the desert to me. The wide, open spaces between Guanajuato and Querétero reminded me of our big skies in rural Alberta; the quiet that one feels when its just you, the sky, and a flat field for as far as they eye can see.

Long stretches of golden brown were dotted with giant cactus, like the traditional ones that look like they have arms, and the nopales, the” prickly pear,” which we had as excellent salad at a family dinner. There is certainly no shortage of inspiring landscape for daydreaming in Mexico.