Escape to These Six Extraordinary Gardens

[Music] plants are the foundation for all life understanding plant diversity is critical to our continued survival [Music] the goal of the world flora online is to accumulate in one place on a website a description and illustrations of every known plant species [Music] we are about five years into the process we are accumulating new specimens we're digitizing them and all of that information feeds in ultimately to the world floor online the main way that our specimens come to us is that they are collected in the field when they're here they are mounted onto stiff paper the information about the plant is transcribed onto a little label that goes along with the specimen [Music] a good mounter can do about 50 specimens per day [Music] once the specimens are mounted we photograph them then that information goes online pretty much immediately [Music] the project began in 2010 and it is meant to be completed by 2020. [Music] we've photographed about 2.6 million of our specimens worldwide it must be on the order of 10 or 15 million plants are endlessly fascinating and we have to know what they are and how they differ from one another in order to understand what kind of measures need to be taken to protect them [Music] this sculpture garden located in japan was primarily unknown to the world until 2016 when a photographer stumbled upon it [Music] there are around 800 sculptures in this park depicting a mix of buddhist deities and what are believed to be replicas of real people all were commissioned by a wealthy japanese man named mutsuo furukawa he is said to have paid 6 billion yen around 60 million us dollars to create this collection in 1989. there is a large statue of furukawa which stands overlooking the park people depicted are said to be his friends and family but it is unclear if they had any knowledge of their stony replicas they stand near a japanese village the name of which translates to the village where you can meet buddha's statues although these lifelike statues stare with blank expressions visitors say there is an unsettling feeling to this place and a concern that at night these effigies aren't so still there's a world-renowned topiary garden in the tiny town of bishopville south carolina and that garden was created by this man a man named pearl [Music] i'm prairie frye and this is my garden pearl started the garden in 1981 with the goal of winning yard of the month from the local garden club i went to a neighborhood to buy a house and the reason they didn't want to sell me a house they said i wouldn't keep her behind there was a stereotype at the time that african-americans didn't keep up their yards so i figured one year out of the month and the person that made that statement could understand you can't judge people by one person once i got yelled at my people couldn't believe it pearl now has over 300 plants most of which were throwaways that came from the recycling bin at a local nursery i don't water i don't spray i don't feel like i use no chemicals it's all natural it's all pretty well done organically some of my tallest plants that was recycled is around 30 feet [Music] so many people drove by pearl's house to see his garden that he opened it up to the public i would say about 10 000 people visiting my garden every year what else do you want to look at people come from all over the world to see it i had people from australia japan korea i wanted to share it because so many people came out and wanted to see it he very seldom see something got out so simple and make an impact that this god has made the garden is about love and the last thing you see before you leave my garden in love peace and good [Music] a trophy belladonna will kill you detura will put you to sleep forever akon item will kill you laurel will produce cyanide and kill you every plant here in the poison garden is poisonous and has the ability to kill you [Music] my name's trevor jones and i'm the head gardener of anik garden this plant is giant hogweed it will get up to around about eight foot high it's phototoxic so will burn your skin and give you blisters for up to seven years this garden is set in the wall garden of the old castle in northumberland uk we'd have around about 95 plants and we're adding to the collection all the time this plant is akinatum or monkshood wonderful blue flowers but the whole of the plant is poisonous the berries crushed up and fed you will kill you the leaves themselves will kill you also as will the root and the stem we have to obviously maintain the garden so we have to tend the plants and when we do that we have to be very careful of the way we operate so we have to cover some of our skin when we deal with particularly dangerous plants this plant is laurel it produces cyanide and we all know what that'll do to you so it's the brainchild of the duchess dutchess of northumberland so rather than having a herb garden she decided to create more interest and have a poison garden they're very very common plants in fact a lot of them are what we call cottage garden plants and they're grown in many people's gardens but people don't know how harmful they actually are this is a tropo belladonna four berries are enough to kill a child people are intrigued by poisonous plants and often very worried when they come out because many of them will be growing these plants at home they don't realise the powerful impact plants can have on us as humans is it something that you find fascinating definitely why it's a good way to get rid of your life [Laughter] [Music] [Music] located in a waterfront park known as gardens by the bay is super tree grove this mechanical forest is a utopia for nature in a very urban location [Music] super tree grove was commissioned by the singapore government with the intention of raising the quality of life for its residents by enhancing greenery and flora in the city this man-made mechanical forest consists of 18 super trees [Applause] the trees range between 80 to 160 feet high and are connected by a walkway which allows visitors to cross between them and view the city from the treetops with their thick trunks and network of thin neuron-like branches each tree acts as a vertical garden [Music] over 160 000 varieties of orchids ferns and other climbing plants have been planted in the trees the trees also generate solar power 11 of the trees are fitted with solar photovoltaic systems that convert sunlight into energy this provides lighting that allows the trees to come alive at night making this an all-day all-season horticultural heaven [Music] rising out of the tuscan hills are some colorful and unusual figures inspired by tarot cards [Music] the tarot park is located in tuscany a few hours outside of rome the park took 20 years to complete and includes 22 figures from the tarot deck there's a sphinx that leads to a golden skeleton riding a blue horse over a green sea this represents death the hanged man can be found inside one of the sparkling grottos suspended from the ceiling and one of the most bizarre figures is the oracle which is a hollow-eyed figure surrounded and covered by snakes the eccentric artist who created this garden was nikki de saint-foal in the early 1950s mickey was committed to an asylum and believes it was art that eventually healed her she wanted to create a place that would have the same healing effect on those who visited the park opened in 1998 just four years before nikki's death in her own words she dreamt of building a garden that would be a dialogue between sculpture and nature a place to dream in [Music] you

Channel: Great Big Story

Views: 182,298

Keywords: great big story, gbs, lag, documentary, docs, planet earth, reels, plants, gardens, nature, flowers, tarot, greepy, japan, great big reels, human condition, poison garden, london, uk

Id: cC-RlLp7uQM

Length: 11min 28sec (688 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 09 2018