I've mentioned before that we spend a lot of time at the Botanical Gardens. They're relatively close to our house, and we have a membership so it doesn't matter if we go for 30 minutes or several hours. On this particular June day, we found so many pretty things in bloom! June is one of those weird times in the south when all the spring plants die off, and the summer ones haven't really taken hold yet, so it was great to go somewhere that had some new stuff to see (it's been so dry here that no matter how much we water, our yard still takes on a Sahara-like appearance).
Our first stop this visit was the little water garden just past the main entrance. I dunno what's up with the "acid frog" painted sculptures they have out for the season, but I'll take lotus and water lilies any day!
Darren likes to play with the koi- they're used to being fed, so they'll come up and nibble at his hands.
It was a particularly warm day, so we took the shady route back to the larger water garden. There was plenty to see along the way!
I assumed that since so much was blooming on the small water garden that the big one would be spectacular, and I wasn't disappointed...lotus, lilies, and lily pads galore!
On the way out we took a stroll through the daylily garden. They have a crazy number of cultivars here and sell some of them every fall. I may have to pick up a few this year to add to our flower beds at home.
That's a typical trip to the gardens for us- we choose 2-3 things we really want to see and just enjoy those instead of trying to take it all in at once. Really, we do better spending just an hour or so at a time there rather than half a day or more. So glad it's so close!