Huntsville Botanical Gardens Part Deux

Part II of my posts on the Ramsey family's visit to the Huntsville Botanical Gardens sees many more fabulous sights along with lots of butterflies. These few posts I have put on this blog cannot begin to scratch the surface of all the Huntsville Botanical Gardens has to offer but I hope you've gained some great garden ideas and have enjoyed all the pictures. The above butterfly is what I believe to be a Gulf Frittilary in the Butterfly House portion of the gardens.

This flower is no longer in bloom but is still beautiful in my book. It is the common Joe Pye Weed. I love this native wildflower in my garden and was impressed by the large healthy swathe of them here at the botanical gardens.

White beautyberries are a new to me plant. Right next to these bunches of the white beautyberries were the usual purple beautyberries. I can't decide if I like one more than the other as they are both great plants. The berries normally will persist on the bushes until December here in my Tennessee garden. Birds love them.

The formal herb garden was a delight. All of the beds were raised up with quite a variety of herbs. The beds were grouped according to usage. For instance: there might be an ornamental bed, a culinary bed, or a medicinal bed with the appropriate herbs growing in each bed. This process makes it easier for interested parties to learn about herbs. Herbs are not my strong point so I enjoyed perusing the various beds.

Along with the herb beds there were some unique plants in this fenced in garden area. The one that caught my eye the most was this root beer plant. The plant itself is fabulous as the leaves are quite hairy.

Japanese anemones are splendid fall bloomers. This large stand of them was simply gorgeous.

I am a huge fan of Japanese maples and the Huntsville Botanical Gardens had quite a collection of several types of Japanese maples. These two were labeled 'Bloodgood'. 'Bloodgood' is a very commonly grown upright Japanese maple. I wouldn't call this color spectacular but the play of the sunlight on the leaves is still quite an eye catcher.

These two columns were part of the Children's Garden area. They were a nice focal point from the pathway. Note the clear blue sky. Fall in the south and especially in Alabama is traditionally a season of clear blue skies, low humidity, and wonderful sun. There is not usually much rain to contend with during the southern fall season.

Now this Japanese maple is quite a unique Japanese maple. I've never seen a bush/groundcover type Japanese maple. The cultivar is listed as 'Goshiki Kotohimo'. I tried Googling this cultivar but could only come up with 'Goshiki Kotohime'. I do believe the two to be the same. This is a dwarf Japanese maple that might be an option for those who are space challenged. It is supposed to be an excellent tree for containers and bonsai.



Well, you know it is getting close to the holiday season. As such many botanical gardens tend to have scarecrow displays. The Huntsville Botanical Gardens have a great collection of scarecrows and actually apparently ran a contest. We could see the winning markers and found the creativity of the people who created these scarecrows just unimaginable. The lady above obviously is "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary".



I'll finish out this post with my two favorite guys. They were great sports to come along with me on the trip and I was simply delighted they were able to take part in a hobby I am very passionate about....


in the garden....


Words and Photos Property of In the Garden Blog Team, In the Garden

Huntsville Botanical Gardens Part One

Part one of my two part Huntsville Botanical Gardens starts us out at the very large visitor center. Right away we find a fabulous Japanese maple that was just beginning to show its fall color. I wish I had thought to write down the cultivar of this Japanese maple but did not. It was not a cultivar I was familiar with but I'd like to know it better. Look at how it glows!

Here is another view of the Japanese maple. To the right of it was a large pot that surrounded another tree. This is where we all had our group picture taken. I do not have a copy of the group picture though so this photo will have to suffice.

The next stop on our travels was to a miniature city complete with trains and ponds and streams. It almost looks as though this city is full sized depending on your vantage point.

The bonsai trees were a real treat in this area. That deciduous rounded leaved tree you see in the center of this picture is a gingko. It was miniaturized (bonsai) very meticulously. The Jimster has read my large bonsai book several times over. He is planning to attempt to bonsai a seedling Japanese maple next spring (or sooner if I can find a seedling in the garden).

Ponds were the word of the day in the gardens. This pond was actually inside of a screened butterfly house. I have a small bathtub pond in my garden but the more I see beautiful ponds like this the more I wish for a larger pond here. My friend Naomi says she'll come and help me build a pond but I have not committed to one yet. The work in maintaining one scares me. Plus, in my garden there are a lot of trees and tree roots. I have no idea where I could locate a pond like this. If I ever did get a pond I'd like one like this. I like that you can see the bottom of the pond. It seemed more natural than the deep dark ones that you usually see.

This pavilion would be a perfect spot to lounge around for like forever. It was so beautiful. 

This water lily pond was surrounded by a hedge of mature 'Emerald Green' arborvitae. I just read in a pond book that water lilies must have still water. I had no idea and am guessing this pond bears that out since there does not appear to be a pump in this water lily pond. 

I happen to be a big fan of arborvitae like those you see in the picture above. I really liked the way the hedge enclosed the pond area in a formal manner. The arborvitae were so green and so lush and so formal. Even if your garden leans more toward the natural like mine these arborvitaes have a spot in all gardens. I have a hedge like this and it is doing okay considering I moved my mature trees earlier this year.

Another shot inside of the butterfly house finds us in the 'Misty Cave'. It was a cool spot where Mr. Fix-it and I were able to relax. This butterfly house had mostly, if not all, native butterflies. Most butterfly houses I have visited seem to have exotic butterflies from other parts of the world. Not so here. We saw mostly frittilaries but there were other types fluttering about as well.

Outside in the gardens the monarchs were busy on the asters. The orange and purple color combination is an awesome combination.



There were many vignettes scattered about the grounds that included scarecrows and other Halloween related creatures. This spider was great. That handsome young man under it is my youngest son Jimmy. He had a fantastic time hanging out with his parents at the garden. We not only saw lots of cool plants, shrubs, and trees but we got lost in a sorghum maze. Have you ever seen sorghum growing? It looks like corn but without the ears and it is much much taller than corn. It grows kind of like Johnson grass. The maze was a lot of fun. I can't remember if I've ever done a maze before but I tell you that you can really get lost quite easily.



Lastly, since I am a tree person I had to show my dear husband looking at a neat tree. Trees are the stars of the show in my opinion because of their structure, their versatility, their interest and their wide variety of types. I am not sure what kind of tree this one was but look at that branching structure. Don't you just want to climb it? 


One more post will be coming on the Huntsville Botanical Gardens this Wednesday....


in the garden....

My nearly eight year old point and shoot camera has decided to stop working. I am interested in recommendations for a new camera. I am looking at the class of superzoom cameras. In particular I like Panasonic DMC-FZ100, Fujifilm HS20, or the Nikon CoolPix P500. I usually use my camera for blogging and family pictures and videos. Any suggestions? 

Words and Photos Property of In the Garden Blog Team, In the Garden

Yard Art from the Huntsville Botanical Gardens-Like it or Not??

I am so behind on postings but am trying diligently to get these all done and in a timely manner. It just seems as though I either don't have the time to prepare my posts or I am doing other things that have a higher priority. I'm not sure which but I do know I enjoy posting so will continue to work at it. This blog is a picture book of things going on in our lives that include not just the garden so I am very serious about keeping up this blog-can anyone give me more time? 


Anyhow, I introduced you all to our master gardener trip to Huntsville on Wednesday and promised three more posts on the trip. This post will focus on yard art. Those who read this blog know I love yard art. A famous gardener once said, "You don't want anything shiny in the garden because it will spoil the garden." Do you all know who said that? I shall tell you later but a hint is that it is a gardener from across the big pond. Perhaps English gardens like boring dull non shiny gardens but over here in the Americas I believe we love our shiny things as evidenced by many of your garden blogs and my recent visit to the Huntsville Botanical Gardens. Just look at the shiny things I found in the garden. These were not in the Children's Garden area proper so you can't blame it on that. This can whirlygig was too cool by itself.

But when you put it together with a couple dozen more you get WAY cool yard art.

The whirlygigs were just a spinning and twirling in the garden. I plan to spend some time this winter making my own cool things out of soda cans for Tiger Gardens. Though, the thought of cut fingers sometimes scares me. Soda cans are easy to cut but they sometimes cut back just like paper and you can get hurt easily. I'll let you all know how it goes. These cans were mounted to rebar which was mounted to fence posts and I thought the setup was most unique.

These cans were made into something similar to Japanese lanterns. I don't know how they cut them so uniformly but this design was very neat and can fit in anywhere. Just add a tea light to the center of the lanterns and you have a great focal point for a night time garden party.

How do you like this can man? I have been saving coffee cans for years now and am really getting tired of them cluttering up my garage. I think I will make time to put one or two of these together this winter as well.





This can be considered yard art but was more of a Halloween decoration due to the approaching holiday at the end of this month. You know I have bicycle rims in my garden-with shiny glass plates in them-bicycle rims are very versatile for use in the garden. This one here has had thread woven around it to simulate a spider's web. The spider is of course Charlotte from Charlotte's Web. There were may vignettes in the gardens when we visited. I could not possibly photograph or post them all but did capture a few.

Lastly, lest you think shiny things like soda cans are not found in Tiger Gardens here is my very own shiny whirlygig. A sweet old man makes and sells these locally. I purchased two more than two years ago from him for $2.50 per can and do you know they are still sailing in my garden? The problem with them is that if you hang them up where they can spin around they sometimes hit things like tree branches which can break off the legs of the can. It's very frustrating for me but still they fly. This one is a new purchase and is intact-for now. The sound they make is that of metal turning and they spin with the slightest bit of breeze.


Now what famous gardener said any shine in a garden ruins a garden? And do you agree? Come on, it's okay if you do agree I don't mind. That is one thing I always value-opinions and we all have them. Gardens must reflect the gardener and if you don't like shiny things in the garden then that is perfectly okay. But if you do like shiny things and yard art-tacky or not-let your voice be heard....


in the garden....

P.S. I'll give you gardening experts a chance to guess the gardener who said shine ruins a garden and then I'll post the answer a bit later.

Words and Photos Property of In the Garden Blog Team, In the Garden