{"id":50984,"date":"2014-02-06T22:40:46","date_gmt":"2014-02-07T02:40:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/?p=50984"},"modified":"2014-02-06T22:40:46","modified_gmt":"2014-02-07T02:40:46","slug":"riad-means-garden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/?p=50984","title":{"rendered":"riad means garden"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><big>It&#8217;s February, so thoughts naturally turn to travel, escape, adventure.  But I&#8217;m not going anywhere at the moment, so I look harder, stare longer, at local scenes, hoping to squeeze something new and startling out of familiar sights.  But walking or biking around town, craving some inspiration from a jewel-box of a front garden, is more often an exercise in frustration than inspiration.  In low-rainfall climates like mine, where gardens are in use year-round, they are frequently concealed behind walls, hedges, fences.  This is an ancient impulse, in thrall to instincts dating back to the first riad.  (See <em>The New York Times<\/em> images of some of the riads of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2013\/05\/12\/t-magazine\/12well-morocco.html\">Taroudant<\/a>.)   Here at home we&#8217;ve gotten into the habit of referring to our house and garden as &#8220;the compound.&#8221;  Not in a crazy sect sense, but in the sense of <em>sanctuary.<\/em>   Like the ancient riads of Morocco.  The word itself is Arabian for <em>garden<\/em>.   So to everyone whose high walls prevent my enjoyment of your luscious gardens as I pass by, I get it.  I really do.  And I should, because I&#8217;m working on my own riad too.<br \/>\n<center><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i52.photobucket.com\/albums\/g23\/botanizeme\/blog\/48841-009.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\" photo 48841-009.jpg\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i52.photobucket.com\/albums\/g23\/botanizeme\/blog\/dar_al_hossoun_taroudant_morocco7.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\" photo dar_al_hossoun_taroudant_morocco7.jpg\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i52.photobucket.com\/albums\/g23\/botanizeme\/blog\/12well-morocco-custom19.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\" photo 12well-morocco-custom19.jpg\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/travel\/2012\/may\/25\/dar-al-hossoun-riad-taroudant-morocco\">Dar al Hossoun, Taroudant<\/a>, Morocco<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i52.photobucket.com\/albums\/g23\/botanizeme\/blog\/tumblr_mpb6iumCcK1qaxsw7o1_500.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\" photo tumblr_mpb6iumCcK1qaxsw7o1_500.jpg\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><small>Simon Watson for The New York Times<\/small><\/p>\n<p><\/big><\/p>\n<p><\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s February, so thoughts naturally turn to travel, escape, adventure. But I&#8217;m not going anywhere at the moment, so I look harder, stare longer, at local scenes, hoping to squeeze something new and startling out of familiar sights. But walking &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/?p=50984\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[2807,551,624],"tags":[2677,3329,3289,2493],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paNJ2E-dgk","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50984"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50984"}],"version-history":[{"count":51,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51902,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50984\/revisions\/51902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}