One summer, I went to a garden party. It was at the home of an extremely wealthy woman, whose garden covers four acres. It took my friend and me two hours just to look at everything. There were astonishing mixes of form and color— one bed of flowers was backed by a hedge shaped into an undulating pattern resembling a huge green wave.
There was the “white garden,” full, of course, of white flowers; and the entry to that garden was flanked by tall urns full of gardenias— you were seduced by the smell before you even saw the blossoms. Also in the white garden were two reflecting pools so calm and flat they instantly soothed the soul. There was a putting green and an entire hole for playing golf, too— maybe a par three. Finally, there was an area left wild, so if you tired of manicured precision, you could go for a walk in the woods.
Birds called from trees and from bird houses built onto the side of the house, butterflies landed on blossoms and slowly opened and closed their wings. There were parasols provided to protect the guests from the sun. They were Japanese in design, lovely to behold in the basket where they were offered, as well as in the distance, where appreciative guests held them over their heads as they murmured to each other amid this bed of flowers or that.
There were canapés served on silver trays, bedecked with miniature bouquets. We ate slivers of sandwiches of chicken salad with grapes and cranberries and pecans, egg salad with chives, roasted red pepper and eggplant, and rounds of toast with tender tips of asparagus, lying on swirled dollops of hollandaise sauce. There were cookies made to resemble flowers and dusted with a sparkly sugar, and there were petite-fours too beautiful to eat, but we ate them anyway. Stationed here and there were pitchers of mint- flavored iced tea, lemonade, and ice water.
We were there to look at the gardens, but I looked at more than that, as did other awestruck guests.
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