A Dolphin in the Garden?????

This weekend is the wonderful Art in the Gardens Show

at the South Texas Botanical Gardens and Nature Center.

My DH and I went today before it got too hot and crowded.

It was just starting to get crowded when we left a few hours later.

Yep, we wandered and wandered through the

Bromeliad Conservatory,

the Butterfly House,

the Orchid House,

and most of the grounds.

I got a few photos,

but mostly we just forgot ourselves in the beauty!

The grounds are right in the middle of some wetland marshes,

so there is lots of wildlife.

There is even a family of raccoons in a group of tall palms,

right when you go into the gardens.

When you are in the back of the gardens

you are in the 'wild' area

where there is an observation platform

for you to watch the wildlife.

Walking paths wind all over the place.

Now as for the art...

there were lots of vendors...

pottery, metal art, jewelry,

mixed media,

paintings

and much more.

This is a watercolor by

Bill Scott, artist of nature.

He does watercolor on papers such as this.

Some of the paper he uses is papyrus,

very fragile paper he said,

but it looks wonderful.

These orchids below are named after a moth,

and the Orchid House was full of them.

They are probably 3-4 inches across.

Some orchid flowers are as big as plates

and some as tiny as pinheads.

Orchids come in all colors of the rainbow.

This shows some of the vendors booths.

Like I mentioned, we were there before the crowd.

These pots were in the Butterfly House.

Love how they stacked them up.

A section of steel rebar goes through the holes of each pot,

then each one is tilted opposite of each other.

I thought it was clever

and a great vertical piece to make for my garden.

I'm standing on the plumeria platform looking through

the plumerias here.

You can see some vendors in the background.

The platform enables you to get up high

for the best viewing of the flowers of all 100

plumeria trees that are around it.

This is a close up of one kind of plumeria.

Now we are back in the bromeliad conservatory.

Aren't these just beautiful!

Mature bromeliads produce a brilliantly colored flower spike

in the center of the plant

and the spike will last several months.

After the flower withers

you can propagate from lateral shoots.

This dolphin used to be one of about 100

that were around the city of Corpus Christi

 a few years ago.

Now it resides in the

bromeliad conservatory.

They are presently having the

Flamingo Fandago.

Everyone picks up a vintage pink flamingo

and decorates it however they want.

Then they are placed around the garden

and judged.

Everyone really enjoys this.

I will try to get some photos

of the finished ones.

Last time I got in on the fun,

my 2 flamingos were mentioned

in the newspaper.

I turned them into

"Empty Nesters".

So you see,

 there's more than one way to...

Savor the Day!

Yvonne

The Flamingo in the Garden: American Yard Art and the Vernacular Landscape (Studies in American Popular History and Culture)