00:00English gardens are known for their wild blooming flowers and a harmonious embrace of nature.
00:12But the roots of these carefully crafted landscapes can be traced far beyond the British Isles,
00:18deep into the ancient traditions of Chinese garden design.
00:23Colin Little and Penny Sterling have completely reshaped their family home
00:28into the most remarkable homage to the 2,000-year-old art of Chinese garden design.
00:35Chinese gardens are supposed to be a mimic of the whole of nature.
00:40So that's why you need water, because you need a lake.
00:43You need mountains, so you have stones.
00:46And you need flowers and buildings as well.
00:49This is the Garden of Ten Thousand Shadows.
00:52Should the sun ever shine coming through the beech tree,
00:55you get more than 10,000 shadows coming through.
00:59This is a Tang Dynasty poem selected by a Chinese friend of ours
01:04who said, you need poetry in a Chinese garden.
01:08My evening raft journey starts in the lake near the woods
01:11when the insects sing and the reeds sigh.
01:15Ten thousand shadows are cast by the moon's light
01:18and a thousand sounds rise in the autumn air.
01:22Now I have reached the evening of my life
01:24and my longing for home is growing upon me.
01:27Beyond those floating clouds in the northwestern sky,
01:31what is the destination of the flowing river?
01:35Much more than just pagodas and bridges,
01:38Chinese gardens are an exploration of what a garden can be.
01:43Ideas of how to be in nature, how to see it.
01:47And take pleasure in it.
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