One of the many jewels in the crown that is Morocco is this incredible garden once owned by

Yves St. Laurent.

The Majorelle Garden (Arabic: حديقة ماجوريل‎) is a twelve-acre botanical garden  in Marrakech. The garden is home to 15+  bird species that are native to North Africa, as well as many fountains, and a notable collection of cacti.

This incredible masterpiece, although best known as St. Laurent’s, was actuallydesigned in the 1920s and 1930s–when Morocco was a French protectorate– by the expatriate French artist Jacques Majorelle (1886-1962).

Majorelle’s  orientalist watercolors have been largely forgotten today (many are preserved in the garden’s collection, though not on view when I was there), this gardens is unquestionably his creative masterpiece.

The special shade of bold cobalt blue, which he used extensively in the garden, is named after him; the color is known bleu Majorelle in French, or, in English, Majorelle Blue.

Yves St. Laurent owned the garden from 1980 (with Pierre Bergé) until the fashion designer’s death in 1980.  St. Laurent’s ashes were scattered in the Majorelle Garden as his final request.

And now, I am going to get back, so you can view pictures of this amazing place on your own. Please note that, as usual in garden design, water plays a large role here.  In the photo above, you are looking at a shallow white-bottomed basin.

You might be entertained to know that the photo above got me kicked out of the little shop that is inside the garden now.  I was only trying to get a picture of the windows in the clerestory, but the fact that I dared to take any photos at all got me escorted out!  It is run by some French people; need I say more?!

M’a ssalama  (مع اسلامة)       [Good-bye in Arabic {I think} ]