A pink taxi

A pink taxi

June 19, 2010

Gardens of Dubai

Do you notice the greenery around you when you drive the streets of Dubai? Do you see the armies of gardeners toiling in the hot sun, for the pleasure of our eyes? Do you gaze at the straight interminable row of palm trees that shade our roads? The flowerbeds that decorate  our remaining rotaries which are being replaced by equally flowered sophisticated interchanges?

During my childhood, when Aweer was a royal oasis that I sometimes frequented to visit the tigers there, I thought one of my relatives was a "royal gardener" because he was working on the project of landscaping the royal palace gardens of Dubai.


The Iranian hospitals of Dubai and Fujeirah that my grandfather founded had their large gardens too. We used to play on their grounds. In fact, and many still remember, I was being chased by my cousin in Fujeirah when I decided
to squeeze myself between two columns, when I got stuck, well my head did. (They literally buttered my head out of there, the hordes of nurses in their whites).

Today, in 2010, there remain the old gardens of Dubai, namely the Aviation club garden, with its pond, and my preferred dragon flies accompanying me to the gym.


There is also AlNaser club, in OudMetha, with the AlNaser Leisurland up front and the very large gymnaseum further down. My children attend the school that has grown in those old gardens. I drop them off daily there, mother duck with her three ducklings and they metamorphose into gentle sheep following their shepard teachers, in neat rows.

Today, we especially enjoy the sophisticated gardens that surround the Emirates Towers and their esplanade. Our kids join the neighborhood kids (children that live in our high tower) and run by the waterfall, climb the big rocks and take their shortcuts behind hedges.

Dubai, city of gardens.

1 comment:

  1. In 1972,the only garden in Dubai was that of the Iranian hospital.Even the landscape engineer Mr Zahedi of Dubai Municiplaity was Iranian.The variety was limited to beaugenvelias of one color,and some Washigtonian palms not indigenous to the arid soil of Dubai.
    Since the Iranian gardeners worked in the morning only at the hospital and the municiplaity,they started moonlighting at nearby villas in Jumeirah(Umm Suqqaim was desert still!!).Suddenly the Dubaians and the expats started having a taste for gardens and colour.
    the Royal family was the first to encourage that,by planning for the first time,large landscaped gardens with automatic irrigation systems that spilled over to the public gardens and parks.Now Dubai boasts some of the most beautiful parks and golf courses in the Middle East,that utilize sewege treated water and refuse.
    These parks are the weekend breathing space for families and visitors,something Dubai should be proud of!

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