Garden Delights

On Friday, hubby and I attended a wedding reception at the LA Arboretum in Acadia. Neither of us had been there before so, in a bid to beat rush-hour traffic, and to take advantage of the location, we drove up early to have time to look around the gardens before the reception.

We both love looking around gardens particularly on a beautiful sunny afternoon as it was that day.

We saw a lot of tropical and other types of plants that we have seen before but there were also some new and unusual things to see too.

I can't remember what this is but I thought it intriguing and strange.

This is one of the more strange orchids in the tropical house.

I'm not crazy about orchids but there were some beautiful examples on display such as these delicate specimens. I also love all the different textures among the ferns and leaves.

This looks like someone took a coloured pencil and rubbed it up and down the green leaves.

The gardens were not very busy when we arrived which may explain why we also got an opportunity to see so much wildlife. We were looking at some turtles when we spotted this fella nearby. It looks like some of the small herons we see at the coast.

This duck spotted us and came over in the hope we had something to eat.

While we were talking to the duck and checking out the turtles, the heron decided he wanted to get a better look at us and walked closer to where we were standing. (You can also see one of the turtles to the right of his beak.)

Another bird we saw at one of the other ponds.

We climbed up a long flight of stairs to see this waterfall and lily pond. Everywhere we looked there were beautiful vistas and lizards. I've never seen so many lizards in one place at one time. True the gardens are spread over 127 acres but I felt was continuously almost tripping over lizards on the pathways.

One of my favourite spots was the herb garden which was laid out in a very English manner.

There were also several cottage garden flowers too such as these hollyhocks.

Another garden inhabitant enjoying the shade in the herb garden.


Throughout the garden we could hear the sound of the several peacocks and peahens strolling the grounds near the entrance.

After three hours of walking around these beautiful gardens, we still had a lovely evening celebrating the newly married life of friends ahead of us.