My mind is still a jumble of thrilling scenes and unforgettable images after spending two weeks visiting some of the most spectacular gardens and places in Brazil.
The tour I was leading started out at Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, jumped over to the bustling city of Belo Horizonte in Minas Gerais and ended up at Iguazu Falls, one of the world’s seven natural wonders, on the Argentina/Paraguay border.
On the way, we visited amazing gardens, most of them designed or inspired by, but always imprinted with, the bold, unmistakable signature of Brazil’s most famous and celebrated landscape architect, Roberto Burle Marx.
Burle Marx was a genius of style. He was not only a superb garden designer and knowledgeable plantsman, but also an artist who produced strikingly original images that have deeply penetrated the collective consciousness of Brazil.
You can see his iconic black and white art squiggles embedded in the pavements and sidewalks all over Rio de Janeiro.
But it was his unwavering enthusiasm for using indigenous South American plants, especially palms, agaves, yuccas, bromeliads, maranta, sansevieria, aloes and unusual tropical trees and shrubs that gave his landscapes their distinctive personality and lush, exotic ambience. We started out by visiting the place where Burle Marx lived and worked until the end of his life: the 3.6-hectare Burle Marx estate, a magnificent garden property in Barra de Guaratiba, on the outskirts of Rio. Burle Marx bought the estate in 1949 with the help of his brother. At the time, the property was mostly undeveloped, but did have a lovely 17th-century chapel, once used by Carmelite nuns.
Burle Marx moved to live permanently on the estate in 1973 until his death at 84 in 1994.
Rather than see the property disappear after his death, Burle Marx bought out his brother and made sure the wonderful garden and art collections were preserved for the future.
Today, the garden, which contains an estimated 3,500 species of plants, is owned and operated by the government.
Stepping through the front gates, we were immediately aware of Burle Marx’s love for native plants.
Huge, lush palms were everywhere and Adam’s rib philodendrons (Monstera deliciosa) scrambled as high as 18 metres up the trunks of trees.
Most trees were also home to various epiphytic plants – orchids, bromeliads, staghorn ferns and air plants – and as we slowly ascended the hillside along an avenue of Brazilian ironwood trees (Caesalpinia ferrea), we passed grove after grove of sculptural agaves, aloes, aechmea, yuccas, cycads and tropical euphorbias.
At the top of the hill, we reached the house, with its elegant interior of hand-painted blue ceilings and tastefully decorated walls, where Burle Marx lived until his death.
The veranda overlooked a charming water garden where borders were crammed with sansevieria and bright yellow grasses while ornate granite columns rising out of the pond were topped with elegant bromeliads.
There were large plumeria trees, also known as frangipani, and great clouds of pink blooming woolly congea (Congea tomentosa).
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