The Secret Garden - The Islamic Garden

 The Palace has two courtyards and their gardens have been restored to a design by the English Garden Designer, Tom Stuart-Smith. The larger courtyard has been restored as an Islamic garden.

Islamic gardens, or chahar bagh, are based on the description of the garden of paradise in the Q'ran. They are enclosed gardens divided into 4 quarters separated by canals or rills fed by a central fountain. This represents the four rivers of paradise, water,milk,honey and wine. The gardens are for looking at from shaded pavilions on the outside with paths along the divides into quarters. The planting is at lower levels to the paths and rills partly to allow gravity irrigation. The planting areas would be filled with aromatic plants particularly fruit trees. The sunken base to the garden would allow the tree canopies to be at  the same height as people on the paths so that they were best able to see the blossoms, pick a fruit and smell the perfume.

To me the secret garden version seems very English. The quarters are only slightly sunken and are penetrated by paths leading to seating within the quarters. 

The planted areas are separated from the paths by clipped rosemary hedges. 

The garden is planted with fruit trees. Care has been taken to use plants which have been available in Morocco for the past 600 years so the main trees are citrus, fig, olive and pomegranate planted in rows and clipped and date palms interspersed in odd clumps as they are in the Agdal.

 Other aromatics are planted sometimes in pots such as Artemisia.

I have some problems with the rosemary hedging. Original chahar bagh would not have  had hedging because of the height separation but is is usual in modern gardens to separate areas with hedging . This is usually hibiscus but other plants are used. However rosemary is not a common plant in Southern Morocco. I have seen rosmarinus repans used as a potted plant in Riad Hida in Ouled Berhil but rosemary in general is uncommon. It is not used in cooking, nor generally obtainable in the souk, and can be difficult to source even in the hypermarket, so I assume it is only used in more northern parts.
I think, because visitors penetrate the garden in a western manner, the designer has not been content to leave bare earth between trees and has sought to provide ground cover. He takes his inspiration for this from the persian concept of a bustan which he understands to be a flowery meadow, a bit like the medieval concept of a flowery mead. However an internet search shows only references to an enclosed orchard  so something may be being lost in translation.

 Here he departs from the rigours of using only native plants and uses stipa tenuissima an ornamental grass native to Texas and Mexico as the  basis of his meadow.It is clipped every 6 weeks so it ranges from short and clumpy to long and waving.

Within this are planted closely clipped lavender and a range of plants each flowering over a short period such as Iris, Turkish Sage, Society Garlic and Californian Poppies so that the picture is constantly changing.

The  hydraulics are restored  and fed by the  the original basin

The elaborate central fountain is circular in shape as are all the fountains in the garden. This one is set into a square pool. In Islamic iconography a circle represents heaven and a square the earth so the paradise fount of heaven is giving abundant water to the earth.

This has been used to feed fountains only 4cm lower in the different quadrants. 

Overall the impression is of a garden designed to a brief for Chelsea. I am somewhat surprised a version did not turn up there as I am sure it would have been successful.

The Secret Garden

The Secret Garden is in the Marrakesh medina near the Mouassine  Mosquue. It was restored and opened to the public in March 2016 and I had not seen it before.
It is built on the site of a former palace first built in Saadian times but rebuilt in the 1860s. In  1912 it was taken by a now redundant courtier who lived there with his 3 wives and numerous children.until his death in 1934. Because of Islamic inheritance laws the site was divided and subdivided until at the millennium it was owned by 130 different people, some owning only a few square metres and with many ramshackle makeshift buildings covering the site. By 2007 an Italian had managed to aquire most of the site and in 2013 a restoration programme was started. Initially an archaeological was made which found traces of the original Saadian buildings and crucially the original water distribution system. 
Marrakesh owes its existence to a complex system of underground pipes and canals  first constructed by the Almoravids in the 12C which brought  water from the Atlas. The water was distributed with a supply to each mosque and its associated fountain which is why the palace was built near the mosque. The garden system worked by tiny changes in level allowing the whole garden and fountains to be fed by gravity. The buildings were restored and decorated with tadelakt,

 stucco and zellige. The intricate traditional painting of the pavilion over the central fountain was still being completed.

and the internal roofing replaced

To Marrakesh

We made a quick trip to Marrakesh inspired by Monty Don's Paradise Gardens. We booked a wonderful Apparthotel selected solely because it was 20m across the road from the Casanove restaurant and it turned out to be lovely; a room with a king bed flat screen TVand lovely separate shower but also a lage living room with seating , an even larger flat screen TV and a kitchen area. When we got there a Victoria "Drink Shop" had opened next door to the restaurant so it was even better. The motorway journey is boring but you could see the snow on the Atlas. You are welcomed into town by this picture of a Berber 

on the side of wall next a garage.

Banana and Lemon

We've been tidying up the terrace ahead of sweetheart's visit. It's a bit warmer now and I've managed to sit up there with my tapestry a couple of afternoons. You may think us nesh blathering about the cold but it has been this year, with the King giving out aid to some hamlets and , at the end of January,  Zagora, which is practically in the Sahara, had snow for the first time in living memory.

We wanted to replace the dead marguarite and vacillated at the pepiniere's. Eventually we got a banana plant

 which at £40 was rather expensive, particularly as it's a bit of a gamble whether it will survive the summer.

The last gamble was on the lemon tree. 

Whilst is is not dead I wanted it to add height. When we bought it it was over the height of the wall. It didn't get enough water over the summer and the top died. Our waterer cut it back "to make it bushy" but that is not what I want, something the same height as everything else. I'm hoping to find a new leader which can be trained up.

 We also got 2 more foliage plants. 

We potted them up with water retaining gel but in the case of the banana Beloved did it to the instructions on the packet. I thought this insufficient for the climate so the others got loads.

The rescue cacti are doing well although one 

more spectacularly than the other.

The cacti are doing well. 

I am particularly pleased with this one

The white geraniums are in flower but the red ones which were in fower when we arrived have finished.

I think it's getting better but we are off to Marrakesh tomorrow to see Tom Stuart Smith's new garden. The difficulty with the terrace is it has to be pots, they, the plants and the earth have to be carried up 2 floors and  there is no regular watering through summer.  I don't care what Great Dixter do with pots,when you can't rotate them the possibilities are limited.

Chicken Blues

Sweetheart likes KFC. As Buxton is not listed as open following their supply debacle she may be glad she's coming in a fortnight and want to go to Agadir. No chicken shortage there but it is Halal.

Baby Camels

We drove north. About 10 kms  out we came upon a group of young men with a herd of camels, some had babies. I asked if they were taking them to town for slaughter. Tey laughed and said no they had nothing to eat and had brought them to graze on the argan forest.

Electric Manouvres in the Dark

It has been cold. Not Buxton cold but several weeks below 20C which is unusual. This has exacerbated the electric difficulties as we have been using heating all day, not just after dinner.
The standard electric supply allows a total current of 25 amps. In practice this means that as well as the lighting and the fridge freezer we can use any two of the electric fire, the two air conditioning units/heaters, the oven, kettle, microwave, rice cooker, deep fat fryer or iron. Any more than 2 and the earth leakage circuit breaker cuts out and you have to turn off an appliance and reset it in the dark. This involves knowing what the other person is doing and for some meals a considerable juggling of appliances. it also explains why on;y tworooms have air conditioning
Last autumn it was suggested we could get a higher wattage supply so we decided to action it. The electrician said no that was only for workshops but as the house is built as 2 flats we could get a second 25 amps supply. We decided to go for it.
Unfortunately it involved Moroccan Bureaucracy and considerable coming and going.
First we needed permission from the planning department

2 visits; one all day wait.

then from the electric board;

3 visits,
We have a piece of paper and the sparks can start the work. He can go so far and then we need another paper from the local precinct;

3 visits
When we attend we are rejected because we only have a photocopy of one of the documents (from when the house was built over 10 years ago) but when we return with a friend the photocopy is accepted. The document we need is stamped 4 times with different ink pad stamps in duplicate and then 2 postage stamps are added to each. Beloved and I each sign twice in duplicate ledgers.This is a result.
We then have to wait for "the committee"  (building control in my terms) to inspect. They come on Thursday and we are told we need to go back to the Electric Board on Friday to sign for the supply. We can't do that as I have to go to Agadir to the dentist. (This is another story; a crown has broken and cannot be replaced so I have to have a "petit dent" or plate. This takes 4 visits to Agadir in 10 days.) We agree to go on Monday when our friend will text.
No text Monday, to dentist Tuesday and Friday but the only text says
"We need to make modifications. We need steel nerfs."
We have visions of all the work being undone to allow the insertion of steel nerfs. We can find no translation for nerfs on google except "gristle". Why do we have to insert beef tendon into our electric supply?
Saturday an explanation is forthcoming. A certificate is required from the architect when the house was built. The first one he supplies shows the owner as the builder.  This has been rejected as the builder is now deceased and "we can't issue a supply to a dead person". Our friend returns to the architect and obtains one in our names. This is rejected because it describes the house as "residential". As there is an integral garage it should read "residential and commercial". Our friend has obtained another certificate from the architect with whom he is becoming quite good friends, and we hope this will be accepted. As he texted he needs "nerves of steel"..
Meanwhile Beloved has decided we should replace all our light bulbs with LED bulbs because they use a tenth the current. As our standard light fitting  uses 9 bulbs this is actually quite a saving but the shop assistants boggle at our purchase of 60 odd bulbs.

If all goes well the kitchen will be on an entirely separate consumer unit to the rest of the house so heating and cooling won't affect the use of appliances and I will have two additional sockets where I want to use them. The down side is that the wiring is done  before the application of Tajlick and tiles so all the new wiring has to be done in external conduits

 and they do not use ring mains so that adding sockets means creating a whole new circuit. However the Sparks who is not tall supported me in the discussion over the placement of the board with the circuit breaker .It is lower down where I can reach.

 The original one needs Beloved to press the button. I would have to find , in the pitch dark, something to climb  on in order to reach.