Les Hesperides, Arucas

[FrazerHenderson]

Occasionally in life one is disappointed. Not often, granted, and it rarely occurs in viewing gardens. However a recent visit to Les Herperides was one of those occasions. The garden had received a great profile by a well known journalist in a gardening magazine (I'll save his blushes by ensuring anonymity). It had even crept into the list of the 1001 gardens that one should visit before one dies. Though I ought to have known that any subjective list contains a few duds. And anyway can there really be over 1000 truly great gardens in the world? Notwithstanding that expectations were high.

And then dashed.

I should have realised something was up because there was only one other visitor. Though the weather did not help. It was - as we say in Scotland - a dreich day.

The garden is reputed to have been designed by a Frenchman. That might be so. But he was clearly not a gardener. The grounds form the former private garden of a banana plantation owner and socialite. Next to the main house - which is modestly pleasing - is a conservation area, reputedly for rare and endemic plants, which has all the charm of a Marseilles' dockyard with various containers (and pots) strewn artistically across greenhouses with barely a nursery plant to be seen. To one side of the house is a small lake - as the guidebook advises - a body of water which would be called  a pond at home. It has an island tea house or pavilion in the oriental style as interpreted by the designer. The planting around the lake/pond is bold and aggressive: epiphytic orchids punched into trees and strangled to posts and big leaved beastly plants shading the dainty and frail. A small grotto can be seen...and quickly dismissed as stucco stone-dash. From in front of the lake/pond a series of paths radiate. Eschewing the tempting exit path (and it is a struggle) one can continue past a fountain (not working) a souvenir shop (not open) and a restaurant (closed - perhaps the French influence persists in the workers) towards the main area of the garden. Here one has the dilemma of a poor cacti garden and a poorer succulent garden or a walk past various exotic fruit trees where one might enjoy al fresco grazing. No contest. At the rear of the garden, enjoying a short rest with a fruit cocktail, can be viewed some impressive Dracaena draco, Pandanas, palms and agaves. The latter are huge; as the photo of an obliging visitor of average height attests.

The garden has a sad dejected air of an Alsace farm - unkempt, unloved and with no real identity.

On the positive: the paths were immaculate. Indeed, I'd recommended these paths as being on the list of 1001 paths one must see before one dies.

I stretched the visit to an hour to justify the entrance fee - though that hour felt like a lost weekend at Calais.

The woman who fleeced me at the entrance gate asked me whether I had enjoyed my visit. I gave a Gallic shrug. My sap was clearly running low

Location: Arucas, Gran Canaria

Type: French mechanical

Facilities: Shop, restaurant, toilets (which were open)

Information: Free Guide book with plants lists and a plan of the garden. Unfortunately, the plant lists use numeric references that are on the plant labels and since only a few labels persist the plant list is largely redundant. Entrance 6 euros.

Rating: 1.5/5 (and that's for the trees and for the acquiring wisdom i.e. don't believe all you all read in the gardening press).

I do however recommend visiting Arucas and spending a pleasant hour or two enjoying the pedestrianised streets and wonderful buildings of the town. The neo-Gothic church of St Juan is worth a viewing.

I'm reluctant to even provide any pictures but needs must...

[FrazerHenderson]

and afew more..

[FrazerHenderson]

and pathways

[Hans J]

The garden has a sad dejected air of an Alsace farm - unkempt, unloved and with no real identity.

Hi Frazer ,

I'm a little surprized about your statement of Alsace farms .....

I live near the french border ( Alsace) and I'm often see farms there- there is nothing to say against this farms ....thats places for working and not for fun .

I do not believe that in your country the farms always looks really nice !

Do you think that the people from Alsace are special disorderly ?

Hans
                                       

[David Nicholson]

See what you mean Frazer, pathways to die for Didn't see the alsatian though