The Flower

My friend John and I went to the U.S. Botanical Garden today. We had a delightful time immersed in the world of Nature. I must confess I do not spend much time as an observer of the natural world. (I am more of a book and museum art person!) But this outing today might spur me to open my eyes more in the great out-of-doors.

Walking from our parking space to the Botanical Garden, John offered me the choice of walking on the sidewalk along the street or on special walks through enchanted gardens. A very simple decision! I discovered a new treasure in my favorite city.

  
I love fountains (perhaps having lived so many years in Rome, the City of Fountains Par Excellence, and my second favorite city).

The main purpose of our visit to the Botanical Garden was to see the Corpse Flower. It takes a lot of energy for these plants to produce a flower. It took this plant 12 years to produce this lovely flower and it would only last for a few days. We caught it at the perfect time!

The museum has 14 of these plants and they are kept in a special room. One never knows when a plant will produce a flower. It may take a few years or it may take a dozen or more. This year was quite extraordinary. Three plants produced flowers at more or less the same time. This plant was the third of the three. (In Chicago, however, they had four plants bloom this year. But Washington will win the World Series this year!!)

John and Christine 

This chart shows the how the corpse flower grows. 

Here are pieces of one of the earlier plants that produced a flower. They had a truly horrible smell. The flower is called a corpse flower because it smells like rotting human flesh. Fortunately, the smell dissipates after a few hours but these pieces still had a very bad smell.

After enjoying the view of the flower, John suggested we go to a special exhibit on How to Grow Plants since he wanted some pointers. It was a wonderfully informative and well-planned exhibit.

I am dedicating the following section to Kirky, my favorite Master Gardener, who is one of my inspirations and is instrumental in beautifying my hometown of Minneapolis. Thank you!

First, we learned which plants are "foolproof," that is, they will thrive even if cared for by a fool like me. They require minimal care.

 John deciding which plants he should get for his home

The first installation explained very clearly the importance of light. Which direction should the sun be coming from for your particular plant? Does it need full sunlight? Indirect sunlight?

 

  

Then we learned about the different kinds of soil including volcanic ice!

Volcanic ice is fourth from the left and sand (liked by cactus plants) is on the far right. Other examples of soil are bark and coconut.

There were many, many examples of kinds of plants.

                                              This is called Picasso's Paint Brush.

This section contains orchids, and they are not considered foolproof. They are for Experts!

On our way back to the car, we walked through the gardens again but took a different route.

You can get a glimpse of the National Museum to the American Indian in the background. (It is not actually in the middle of all of this gorgeous greenery!)

Information about roses 

Information about shrubs native to the region

It was a gorgeous day and a perfect day for wandering through gardens!