Wordless Wednesday: can't we all just decide to be happy?

 

Wordless Wednesday: balloon heaven

 

All things botanical, Part 2

 

Eagle eyes will note that the above is not a shot of the San Antonio skyline. Yes, other cities have botanical gardens, too!

I do have more to show you about our local center, but I recently visited Austin's, and found it different, but just as nice.

I think it's actually been around longer than ours, and while not quite as extensive, the maturity of its landscape and hardscape leads to its distinctiveness. Not to mention a couple of unique (or at least not represented in SA's garden) features:

One of the garden's bonsai trees...
Cedar elms! like, and unlike, what we have in our front yard

Dino garden!

The "dinosaur garden" not only featured the cute sculpture you see above, but the plants in the area were mostly primitive as well. Visitors thereby get an idea of what kinds of flora those ancient fauna might have been familiar with. An example is at the right. 

Quite an imaginative and lovely space, which also has an impressive waterfall.

We were lucky with the weather for our visit, as it was overcast and a little cool, but I suspect this garden might be visitable even when the temps get summery, since most of its paths are so shaded.

I have to add a couple of lovely shots I took during another Austin excursion, to another garden. This was the Mayfield Park and Preserve, otherwise known as the peafowls' hangout. Unfortunately they weren't posing for me this day, but you can see some pretty spectacular photos of them at the link above. I'll just show you a couple of flower pix:

their lily ponds are wonderful

fabulous amaryllis!

Wordless Wednesday: every which way

 

All things botanical, Part 1

 

One of the best things to come out of a recent long visit by two of my Adorable Granddaughters (besides just the joy of having them close at hand after over a year of only Zoom contact) was my purchase of a membership to our wonderful Botanical Garden. Since I knew they'll be looking for outdoor activities, I figured, why not? As it turned out, my only regret was that I hadn't done this years ago—what a great place it is!

We actually made several visits, which is one reason for the "Part 1" in my title. These photos are from our first trip, when "Origami in the Garden" was their special theme. (They have an exciting new special exhibit theme up now, and I'll be showing you shots from that soon.) Various folding-paper-like sculptures were on view throughout the Garden, and made for some great photo opps.

There were some variations on the theme, too, like these colorful sculptures...

...and this tiny one, in the absolutely fantastic children's area that we discovered on our second visit...

Yes, the place has so much to offer, and all of it wonderful, that we had trouble seeing it all, even with all of our trips there! For example, we kept trying to find time to get into the glass conservatories that looked so inviting, but didn't make it there until our third visit (photos to come):

Although we did get to the Piney Woods section early on; it has a nice, shaded trail, and lots of examples of one of my favorite botanical features—cypress knees!

And we were able to make a quick admire-and-sniff tour through the impressive rose garden, as you can see at the top of the post and here:

Every color rose under the sun is on display here!

I'll close with one of the cute little playhouses featured in the children's area. If you ever have grandchildren visiting, you have to take them to this Garden!

Wordless Wednesday: Color TV AND Catfish!

 

Wordless Wednesday: something was good for the bluebonnets