Gardens

Yesterday, we broke out of our lazy Saturday morning routine and went to our local Botanical Gardens to hit the free hours. We had such a great time! Paul and I talked and dreamed and pontificated about what the Garden of Eden must have been like. Because as incredible as raw, natural beauty is, there's something even more exalted about beautiful landscaping. Man's creative touch must be only a shadow of what is divinely possible. We'd sure like to have a real garden someday. Ideally, we'd also like a newer house that requires a little less upkeep so we could focus more on a yard. It's nice to dream sometimes. Anyways.
Isn't this tree awesome? It was huge. You can sort of see Benjamin hanging out on one of the massive drooping branches.There was also a dinosaur exhibit in the Climatron that was a highlight for Benjamin and Peter. We saw cocoa bean plants, banana trees, giant bamboo, and all sorts of amazing plant life in there. This spot in the Japanese garden was beautiful. I love the mossy carpet. I wish we had gotten over to the English gardens. They're also some of my favorites. The boys also loved feeding the giant Koi fish in the Japanese gardens. Can you spy my growing 6 1/2 month pregnant belly?We also spent some time in the Children's Garden that had all sorts of things for kids to climb. Peter is one coordinated little kid! Benjamin enjoyed climbing up and down and across different ropes.
We admittedly hadn't done anything with our little square foot gardens this year until now. But we came home with a renewed zeal to do something about it, so now we have 6 tomato plants, 6 cucumber plants, a few pepper plants and a blueberry bush. Our strawberry patch remained untouched from last year, and has been thriving largely on its own. There are dozens of white flowers and little fruits covering the vines! Our raspberry bushes also seem to be doing a lot better this year and have sent out good hearty runners.