The Vander Veer Botanical Garden is much like Noelridge Park except they charge a buck at the conservatory. The garden areas are also more formally organized like a botanical garden rather than a city park. Nearby the Quad City Botanical is a good example of a real
botanical garden.
I remember the sculpture of the three children as rather special to photograph. It sits on the corner teasing every time we drove by but there is no really nearby parking. The best access was parking at the conservatory and making the 'round the garden trek. I just liked the variations of yellow and green in this bush near the conservatory wall you can see in the background and yellow is Lori's favorite color.
Here in the formal rose garden is one of my early experimnts with shutter speeds. Looking across the fountain down the promenade toward the stone fountain the shot at 1/250 seconds shows the water droplets while at 1/50 seconds they tend to blur out although neither photograph goes to an extreme.
The roses were also very well tended with a couple of my favorites here. Rose gardens can be very beautiful but they also require a lot of care mostly from volunteers. Up near the conservatory is an opportunity to sit like a very very quiet bug and hope the preying mantis does not see you.
Inside the conservatory are many of the more sensitive flowers watching over the sleeping baby at the small water fountain stream. The variegated leaf reminds me of my favorite coleus and the garden provided some serious additions to my collection on this separate page. The iris is Lori's favorite.