Birmingham Botanical Gardens
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| A container planting near the main building |
Last Thursday and Friday, I attended an Archivist conference there for my job, but I've been to the gardens many times before. I lived in Birmingham briefly right after my college graduation and visited often. It was a great place to take photographs, to relax and just get away from it all.
It was just as beautiful as I'd remembered it although many areas had changed somewhat and there were new things to see. Apparently the drought has been worse there than in Florence because the Japanese garden looked really bad with numerous dead trees and the pond looked nasty.
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| Beautyberry (Callicarpa) growing alongside the stream |
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| One of my favorite areas was always the Iris Garden. I did actually see some Iris blooming along with other perennials. This is really spectacular in the Spring of course. |
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| Woodland garden |
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| One of my favorite roses, "Mrs. B.R. Cant" was blooming over a rock wall |
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| Check out the size of these castor beans |
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| The BBG also has a fine rose garden. The hybrid teas were bursting with bloom. Behind the pergola is another rose garden with older varieties. |
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| The Herb Garden - |
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| This small formal area was enclosed by brick and featured ferns, evergreens and caladiums. |
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| A beautiful water feature |
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| This pergola is exactly the type I want to build if we move to the country. |
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| A large raised bed with tropical plants |
If you are in Birmingham, do visit the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. There is no admission price and the gardens are beautifully maintained. And after that, you can head across the street and visit the zoo.
Comments
I'm not 100% sure, but the mystery plant you photographed looks like Fallopia japonica to me. It is supposed to be very invasive, but I've had it for three years, and still have the same two stems coming up. Ultimately it can become a small tree (8 feet tall, perhaps). Mine gets knocked back a lot in winter, but comes back bigger and stronger each year.
John Manion, who was the gardens curator at the Atlanta History Center, moved to BBG earlier this year....a huge loss for Atlanta. He is a delight to interact with, and I'm sure if you called him he would tell you for certain.
That mystery plant looks familiar to me, something like what I have, but not exactly. Obviously, I can't remember the name of wha tI have.... :)
Barbara H.
Good luck with your poison ivy, I have been around it all my life, but have never had a bad case of it, but don't get me started on chiggers.
gail
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