Today I received a very nice hand written note informing me that my photo, “Waterfalls”, was chosen for “The Eye of the Quilter” exhibit that will be at International Quilt Festival in Houston later this month! The exhibit will be a group of photos taken by quilters that give an idea of what inspires our quilts. We sent digital images, and those selected will be printed and framed for the exhibit….. It should be a great selection of photos…. Here are the two photos that were not chosen…
Yellow Rose 1
Inniswood Arbor
Top is a photo of “Lemon Puff” yellow roses, and the lower one is a view from inside an arbor at Inniswood Gardens, Columbus,OH. The opening of the arbor frames the view of the gardens beyond.
Now that it has been two weeks since our trip to the Morris Arboretum, Philadelphia, PA, I am finally getting some of those photos posted… I took well over 300 photos…. here are just a few highlights…..
A nest in an exhibit high in the trees that lets you see things from a bird’s eye view in the treetops. To give an idea of the size of the nest, we could walk in through the side and look up, out the top…. There were many walkways high up in the trees, a really neat experience.
After we walked out of the treetop exhibit, we wandered through a formal rose garden complete with a fountain in the middle. This gazebo was on one of the outer corners of that garden. There are many beautiful huge, old trees of all kinds through the arboretum, like the one here.
One of my favorite places…. The Fernery…. This beautiful conservatory greenhouse has been restored to it’s original state. It is beautiful from the outside, but inside……
Ferns, ferns, and more ferns….. It was such a beautiful, calming, cool place to be. The photos above just aren’t like being there….. There were ferns of all kinds, moss, and other plants tucked into every corner… There were many paths to walk, ponds, waterfalls, fish, and more…. Lots of my most favorite family of ferns- the Maidenhairs…. many different versions were here.
I forget what type of tree this was, but it was another really hige one…. The tree branches hung down all around it, many to the ground… I should have gotten a photo of Ken while he was nearer to the main trunks…
There are lots of interesting garden structures…. Here is one at the Swan Pond. We saw one swan, napping along the edge of the water… There were a number of geese and ducks happily swimming in the pond while we were there.
I did take lots of flower photos, but won’t over do things with them… Here are a couple of pale pink late blooming Anemone flowers… They are great shade flowers that grow about three ft. tall.
Ginkgo leaves!!! I love Ginkgos, and as we were walking along, I noticed some of the leaves from this tree on the ground before I found the tree. There must have been a nasty storm the day before, because there were small branches and lots of leaves scattered about. Here are some leaves with the bright blue sky behind them. This tree was the biggest Ginkgo I have ever seen…. Arboretums are so great…. they have such a wide selection of trees, and some really huge, old specimens.
Here is one of the last gardens we wandered through…. I love the gates that are at the entrances….. This garden was filled mostly with plants with foliage or flowers in shades of orange. Alongside this garden was another narrow one with a long pond filled with fountains, separated from this one by a wall of climbing runner beans and other blooming vines. Like walking from one room to another…
This was just a tiny number of photos I have to play with now….. There was so much to see…. I am thinking that next year, we need to visit again maybe in the spring…. Then another trip to explore the gardens in Columbus, OH area. There is so much more to see…..
I am a former textile artist and new pattern designer with a degree in horticulture, wishing to share my love of nature, flowers and gardens with everyone through my photos, sunprinted fabrics, and now pattern designs. Chronic Lyme Disease has caused major changes to the direction my life. I have to limit the amount of time spent digging in my gardens, and quilting has become more difficult. I discovered pattern design as a way to get art back into my life. I now use my gardens and photos to inspire designs that can be used on fabrics and print on demand items.
