Allerton Garden

Allerton and McBride Gardens are adjacent to one another and now part of the National Botanical Garden Network. We have visited these gardens before, and although you see pretty much the same things each time you take the guided tour, your guide has their own interests, and what you learn can be quite different. You can search this site to see what I had to say in other years. This focuses on the unique insights I picked up this time.

The Allerton Gardens are best understood as interconnected outdoor rooms where the Allertons liked to entertain (their home was small). Many of these rooms contained water features and it was the sophistication of the design of these water features caught my attention.

For example, in the following two water features, you can see the effort to capture reflections of the structures that were also designed by the Allertons. In the second image, the progression of turbulence in the sequence of pools creates images in the tradition of different painters, from more to less realistic. 

In this garden, the water feature's design is intended to encourage relaxation. The sound of running water, meant to mimic the heart, was created to aid relaxation. I tried to capture this sound in the short video.

These areas were largely committed to the raising of sugar cane before the big agricultural companies moved on. The constant demand of this crop so depleted the soil that the open areas have yet to recover and now appear as what might seem might seem pasture land.

I just had to throw this one in. Wild pigs are a menace to agriculture and carefully landscaped areas in Kauai. They trap pigs much the same way as we have seen bears trapped in other areas we have visited.