More Early Blossoms

Kevin, Bart and I went over to the Royal Botanical Gardens yesterday to renew our membership and have a quick look around.  At the main building there was a dinosaur exhibit, the dinosaur peripheral interest stuff (2 young boys were sporting T-Rex costumes and were about to rumble - I wish I was fast enough to get that picture) and a live snake/alligator/lizard show going on.

When we'd originally headed out, I'd thought we'd check out the skunk cabbage, but the two of us wimped out.  The trail was muck-city - and the thought of getting back into the fairly clean car with muddy boots and one little dirt-caked fur ball, was just not what we had in mind for a Sunday a.m.

So here's what we could and did see sticking to paths and open gardens:

Hippeastrum 'Charisma'

A North American alligator:

Then, in the tiny little garden by the restaurant at the back of the main building - my first Galanthus - snow drops.  Did you know that they, like the Hippeastrum, are in the Amaryllis family?

Reading posts from around the world, I'm amazed at the different varieties that are available elsewhere. Here, even from the better bulb purveyors, it's unusual to be offered more than just one variety.

There were no labels to say what kind these were, but they all seemed to have a slightly different appearance depending where they were growing in the garden.

Here's one that had escaped into the parking lot:

And another beside the fence:

The rock garden and Laking garden were closed, so we headed over to the arboretum - talk about goose city:

While I thought it was the geese that Bart was enthralled with, I was less than delighted to learn it was their poop that was of greater interest - Kevin had to watch and pull him up short before he did the old drop and roll.



and obviously deer city too - here are some new specimens caged in plastic to keep Bambi and his mum away:

This part of the gardens is quite overgrown and many of the labels are gone.  I was hoping to find some Hamamelis in bloom - and pleased when I did.  Hardly any scent for this one:

Here's the sister plant to the one I've got in my garden - much better scent.































Kevin had appointments all afternoon - so it was back in the car and home we went.  With the rain here today, the snow will be completely gone - I can hardly wait to see what treasures await in the days and weeks to come.