One of our wonderful discoveries in Cedar Rapids was the Noelridge Park. While only a city park and not properly a botanical garden it could easily be compared to a rather good one. Talking to one of the parks department supervisors she apoligized that after the massive flood in June they were way behind in caring for the gardens throughout the whole city.
Just a simple open city park we could walk around to see the various flower beds and were not constrained to the straight and narrow pathways of your typical botanical garden. The wind was also gusting which made photography challenging when after getting the shot all lined up WHOOSH!
I am finding at Noelridge I have a number of these pairs of a flower bed overall followed by a closeup of some of the details. I wish I could say that I had really planned it that way but it was more a matter of getting a lot of pictures some match up. According to my sister If you take enough pictures you can crop out something good
. Not really my normal plan.
I did get into chasing butterflies around the various flower beds. Botanical gardens having exotic butterfly houses is becoming almost a required standard feature but I remain somewhat partial to our own natural varieties rather than the fancy foreign types.
And all the colors of the rainbow.
I really prefer spring for all the new growth, but a very close second is the early fall flowers. The fall tree colors are highly dependent on a large number of factors like rainfall and a good hard cold snap. You can always be sure with adequate water the flowers are beautiful.
There is a song I sing that Lori hates called May the Bird of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose.
I had not realized it referred to a flower and fits with the second phrase May an elephant caress you with his toes.
.
This last collection of flowers and plants are from inside the greenhouse that protects the more sensitive types and is the starter area for the outside flowers in all the city parks. In the page for the LSU Rural Life Museum I showed the stump of a banana tree and here is the real thing with a full crop almost ready.