randuwa: United States Botanical Gardens

What to do on a gray day off? It's cool and damp and so wintry-BLAH! Answer: Take a trip to a tropical jungle, or an arid desert, or even time travel to a primordial moss covered, fern ridden bog...oh, oh! No, even better! Go to ALL three and then some at the United States Botanical Gardens.

The visit began with a stroll through the adjacent dormant seasonal gardens. A wilderness area, an Arabic patio with fountain, a mosaic rose garden, all awaiting Spring.

Inside you experience many unique eco-realms. A few are found in large spaces, others in alcoves and nooks. Here are some of the images that I discovered in the some of those places.

THE FOYER/ENTRANCE HALL

Flanked with twin rectangular pools with fountains orchids and amaryllis are featured among the other trees and plants.

Cymbidium are my favorite kind of orchids.

THE ORCHID ROOM

Features dozens of varieties of orchids year round in a natural setting among other tropical foliage.

This is the bluest orchid that I've ever seen.

THE JUNGLE

The jungle is the largest area of the gardens in square footage and height--the center-piece of the complex. It is divided down the middle with a water feature that goes from overflowing balcony pool to jungle stream. Everywhere you look there are palms, ferns and philodendrons, bromeliads, etc. It is lush. The good kind of lush!

THE JUNGLE CANOPY CATWALK

One of my most favorite places to explore. The catwalk rims the upper edges of the large "green house" and it affords you both a monkey's eye view of the jungle below, as well as, dozens of amazing plant finds. Plants that thrive up high and in the most peculiar places. In the actual tropics these would be tree trunks and rock outcrops, but in a giant green house, it's on the metal skeleton of the building.

THE DESERT

An dry counter point to the humid jungle, the space features plants indigenous to the world's semi-arid ecosystems. Cacti and succulents make up the majority of the plants, but they are far from common and offer a variety of interesting forms and images.