Time for gardens

Four atmospheric monastery gardens with herbs and fragrant flowers grow between high, overgrown walls. It gives a timeless image. The beautiful light makes the pictures complete for me.

My greatest green love is for tree-shaded gardens with moss and stones. Attempting to recreate my own real garden with Stable Diffusion never really comes close. Here's an attempt with a pond, some flowering plants and especially lots of moss.

We can almost wonder if this isn't a garden, but a landscape.

A Japanese garden is the superlative in my garden love. Unfortunately, I often find Stable Diffusion disappointing when it comes to a realistic representation of it. Here's an attempt with flowering plum trees in a Japanese setting.

If realistic does not work well, then an artistic interpretation is often better. Unsolicited, during these picnics under cherry blossoms, the thought of Vincent van Gogh floats to the surface.

Van Gogh did not feature in the prompt, but he (like many of his contemporaries) was in turn inspired by Japanese art.

Unfortunately, we cannot ask Stable Diffusion how it came to this rendering.

To try something completely different: a cactus garden in a desert environment - at night. Here a realistic representation seems to work better - but that may also be due to my lack of knowledge and experience with cacti.

Here, too, 'garden' cannot really be distinguished from 'landscape'.

What makes many hearts beat faster: a lavish flower garden. Here the focus is not only on the flowers, but also on the entrance gate.

These gardens deliberately merge into nature, just as the houses are almost swallowed up by it. If we look at the origin of the word 'garden', we cannot strictly call these images gardens, because they have no fence. Unless we fantasize that these are estates, with a gate at a distance - no one to stop us.

These four gardens were intended to be the palace gardens of Versailles, and although they bear some of its forms, they completely lack the floweryness of spring and summer, the autumnal hues of autumn and the bare branches of winter. We're still learning here.

Instead of zooming out as above, we can also zoom in for a cozier garden feeling. Do you also hear the waterfall in a sheltered and shaded corner of the garden?

Other buildings also make it irrefutably clear that we are dealing with a garden. Think arbors and rose arches.

A much later attempt at a Japanese garden turned out better, either thanks to a newer version of Stable Diffusion, and/or finding a suitable seed value. Here we can imagine ourselves on a Japanese estate with a tea house.

Those who like sleek and modern may get more inspiration from the following gardens. Whether straight or round shapes are chosen, they say 'garden'.

So what would I like my future garden to look like? At least with moss and stones; trees for shade; a soft splashing waterfall...

For lovers of romance, there are also other options, such as these  flower gardens with floral wreaths and romantic dresses.