Sometimes I think that if you blindfolded me and put me in a Star Trek transporter to an unknown natural destination, deprived of giveaway clues like language,  I could still tell which country I was in my the smells and sights of nature around me. Certain smells like mandarin oranges remind me of childhood Christmases, smells can be so evocative or time and space and memory.

For me the smell of newly cut grass, marigolds, annual flowerbeds and roses are the England I knew when I was growing up.  Here is Nepal all of these are everywhere, looking very English and completely foreign all at the same time as they mix in with some very Nepali surroundings.

In fact if was dropped blindfolded in a Nepali garden, I might have a really hard time figuring out where I was at all.  Its all here…everything…from so many different places I have lived:

And yet the Himalayas and Hertfordshire are not the only mix I see. Let me explain about the Greek contingent going here too:

 

 

And before you think that Nepalese gardens are very European…let me shake it up a bit by introducing The Philippines into the mix:

And finally, just for good measure, a little North American Fall and Christmas….

Is there anything that DOESN’T grow here ?!!