I wrote about nostalgia for May. But today, on a rainy Sunday, I’ll show some of the sights from the botanical garden in June.
We’ll start by the cafe, where new hanging baskets are fiery bright.
If we stop in the cafe for cup of coffee and some chômeur, we could sit in one of two patios for the cafe. The larger one, out front, has a fountain and flower beds and mosaics. Unfortunately, it’s also more crowded, and unattended children running amok or sneezing wildly can impact the enjoyment of one’s dessert.
The other patio, out back, has a view into the demonstration gardens and is usually less crowded. And this year, even the pavement there is in bloom.
Once inside the garden itself, we’ll cut through the demonstration gardens. The magnolia tree there is now flowerless and not attracting the influencer crowd, but some poppies are drawing attention.
In the fruit garden across the way, we may well encounter a notorious bandit. The infamous fellow doesn’t generally stick around to sign autographs, though.
From there, we’ll take a short jaunt in the alpine garden. This garden is very seasonal. Sometimes, it looks like lots of bare rocks with an occasional flat clump of some herby thing like a ground-cover thyme or desiccated lichens. But for a brief moment, it’s alive with flowers.
From the alpine garden, we can wander off towards the Flowery Brook (this is the official name of this part of the garden). There’s a bit of overlap between peony and iris seasons in this area, so from week to week it changes in color and character.
We can take in a view of the bigger pond from the end of the Flowery Brook. Most of the lotus are blooming openly and proudly, although some are a little shy and hide in lily-pad bathrobes.
Well, the clouds are getting low again and it’s threatening to rain on us, so we’ll head on out and bike home before we get too soaked.
We’ll see how things go! It seems to rain on weekend here, so maybe we’ll get more views of the garden in June, or maybe we’ll have to wait for July.