United States Botanic Garden

I took a quick trip to the US Botanic Garden before leaving for Albuquerque for a couple of weeks. Am I glad that I did. It really is a place you need to see at various times of the year. I'm going to try really hard to plan my adventures so that I get to walk by at least once a month. Well, maybe not in the dead of winter since almost nothing blooms at that time, but it would still be nice to walk through the conservatory I'm sure. Also, there is an annual holiday exhibit that I hear is not to be missed.

I entered through the National Garden which features a native plant garden, a rose garden, a water garden, and a butterfly garden. There were so many beautiful things in bloom, I wish that I'd gone by earlier in the summer. Who knows what I missed. I also wish that I'd made note of the names of the plants and flowers that I took pictures of. Unless I happened to get the marker in the picture, I have no idea what most of the flowers are. Still, they're very beautiful.

Next, I walked across the street to Bartholdi Park . The park was created in 1932 and named for the sculptor of the beautiful fountain in the center. When I went there was no water in the fountain. I sure hope that is only temporary. It is too beautiful to not have water flowing. With benches and tables spread throughout, it looks like the perfect place to bring your lunch.

I then walked through the conservatory. All I can say is, "Wow!" It is divided into sections and houses permanent collections of plants from different regions - tropical, sub-tropical, arid. A section for medicinal plants. A section for rare and endangered plants. A section featuring plants from Hawaii. A reconstructed Jurassic landscape. The section that really blew me away was the one dedicated to orchids. There must have been at least a hundred different varieties.

I've uploaded all the pictures (well, the ones that came out anyway) here . As I mentioned earlier I don't know the names of too many, so the captions are kind of vague.

The summer exhibit for this year was entitled One Planet - Ours! and focused on sustainability. There were displays scattered throughout but tying it all together was Cool Globes , an exhibit of 40 sculptures designed to promote solutions to the problem of global warming. Each globe is five feet in diameter. I only took pictures of about half of them which you can see here .

After spending the afternoon here, all I can think about is how much work I need to do on my yard in Albuquerque.