Several Pics from Royal Botanical Gardens

We're being rather quiet here on the Canadian Forum, eh?
Ack, that's okay. I get like that too. I have some pics from my visit to the RBG, in Burlington, taken this past weekend.
I've actually been there two weekends in a row now and have decided to become a member because I feel they have so much to offer, not just for myself, but for the whole family. The first weekend we took the children to the Aboretum portion of RBG (they didn't want to do the gardens). Sadly, I forgot the camera (still kicking myself) but the kids really enjoyed being able to feed chipmunks and chickadees right from their hands. For my 7 yr old son, having a bird land on his little hand for the first time in his life, was better than Canada's Wonderland! The giggles and squeals of delight from our 4 children that day had me so emotional (this is a mother "thing"). To visit the Aboretum is free and to visit the other portions costs $8.00/person for the whole day for non-members.
DH and I went the following weekend on our own to visit the gardens and too often I forgot to take a pic because I was too caught up with looking around. But here's what I did get:

This is as you enter Hendrie Park. Same display of mums is on the other side of the path.
Currently, there is a large exhibit of sculptures created by artists from Zimbabwe. The sculptures are everywhere through out Hendrie and are for sale. I think the lowest price I saw on one of these sculptures was $1000 Cdn.

As you continue to walk, you are greeted by this trio:

This one is called Praying Together:

Family Secrets:

There's DH just beyond a sculpture called Fetching Water. I don't know if I took this pic more for the sculpture or for the way DH was looking so intently at the garden, lol.

Are your birds worth a $1000 dollar bath tub?!!

Nice pics, Erynne. More botanical gardens. Will have to plan a tour of gardens some day.

Ann

Still in Hendrie, spider web garden display

You betcha Ann! Have you been to RBG? If you ever come down here, I'm soooo taking you!!
Now, I'm not big into roses at this point in my gardening hobby because I don't feel that my thumbs are green enough just yet but this is one rose that I absolutely fell in love with...Elina:

The scent was wonderful!

The rose gardens seem to be winding down but still impressive as I never seen so many in one spot! There's more to the rose gardens than what my pic shows.

An espaliered(sp?) tree in Hendrie. I hunted all over for a tag to identify this tree, but no luck. I can't imagine how many years it took to achieve this work of art:

Persian Shield (Strobilanthes dyerianus) appeared in many container plantings. It had such a lovely metallic purple look to it (I've never seen this plant before) that I had to take a pic. I'll be hunting for this plant next year:

After checking out the roses, we headed to the woodland area. I would've loved to stay there longer but it was warm & damp and the mosquitoes were out full force. This tree was labelled as being a Paperbark Maple. Other pics that I've seen of this tree look more "peely", so I hope this is correct and no one was moving tags around (as I found in the hosta walk, grrrr).

As pretty as the berries are, this apparently is not a good thing to have growing in your garden due to it's ability to choke out other plants. Porcelain Berry Vine (Ampelopsis brevipedunculata):

Of course there had to be some hostas here! The woodland contained many native plants as well as non-native.

DH said we need a pic of me with hostas directly behind....okay fine, but make it fast cuz I'm getting bit by the mozzies!!!

Out of the woods and over to the annual garden of Hendrie.

A border I really liked (hey it's great for ideas if not for anything else):

Another bed that caught my eye:

Okay, I thought this was too funny. While I was looking at the bed in the above pic, DH came over and said "I found this amazing plant.....you gotta see it"! So I follow him, happy that he's taken an interest and when I get there, he points to this:

some, fancy, wild, exotic plant huh.....must be the comfy familiarity of it and having not realized that this is planted at every Tim Hortons, McDonalds, Wendy's and KFC around here accompanied by Dusty Millar......omg, honey, please stay out of my garden!!!

There was another that he really liked, but I'm not even going to go there!

Japanese Anemones were planted generously. I really liked this one.

Oh, Erynne, I howled when I saw that - what IS it with men and those darn things? My DH loves them too!

C'mon, you have to tell me what the other plant was!

I've got some of that Japanese Anemone, and I'll send you a piece if you tell me...I'll send you a piece anyway, if you like?

I have more photos to post of the Laking Gardens as well as the incredible Rock Gardens but I will do this tomorrow during the day, since it's late and my eyes are getting tired. I will sign off with this one photo from the Rock Gardens for now......Sandy, this one is for you in case you're doing the midnight prowl.

Thanks for looking,
Erynne

ROFLMBO @ you Cheryl!! You want me to embarrass the poor guy? It was the same plant but in bright Ronald Mcdonald orange!! Red and orange celosia is what he'd like to see our garden and I just can't do it.......I CAN'T!!! Maybe I'll give him his own little pot but that's it!

What a hoot! I knew it I knew it - when we first were married, my DH accompanied me to the garden centre, and we were wandering around looking at different areas, and he came up to me with a pot of red, a pot of screaming orange, and a pot of neon yellow, and said "I like these!"

I made him up a planter, with those and some dark coleous, after I walked around my gardens for ages, and just could not find a place to ahem, "fit them in." Anywhere I put them, they leapt up and screamed "Me! Me! Look at ME!!"

If you do find a supplier for the Strobilanthes, let me know, I've been trying to find that for years now.

ROTFLOL!!! Yes, men do seem to like anything super brilliant and "in your face" don't they? My DH has the same tendency, but I've so far been able to satisfy him with bright red/yellow and purple/dusky mauve combinations of things like dahlias, glads, even brilliant purple petunias! He also just loves things that look tropical, unexpected, or exotic like castor beans, brilliantly coloured coleous, and my opuntia.

Erynne, thanks for sharing these wonderful photos - and the even more wonderful commentary :-) It was almost like walking along with you.

--Ginny

Lovely photos, Erynne. Thanks for the tour. Very enjoyable. Loved the Persian Shield (Strobilanthes dyerianus). I must be odd though; I really like Celosia. :-%

Don ^j^

Don, I'm odd too. And I KNOW I posted a message earlier saying that I liked Celosia too. Don't know where it went - maybe to a different thread??? Anyway, I always grow a bit of the stuff just like the picture with red leaves. Looks great among the green foliage of perennials that bloom earlier in the season.

Ann

That's the word I was looking for "screaming". These celosia do just that! I'm not even going to mention the neon yellow to my DH Cheryl. I'm not a plant snob and I'm sure some of my choices would make a plant snob cringe, but I just can't take the intense colours of these celosia.
Don, you're not odd, it's just what you happen to like! I like teasing DH about this and I can understand why he's not into pink & lavender hues.
Ginny, you're right about men seeming to like bolder plants. DH likes my brug and he liked the cannas at Ann's house. First thing he asked when we left Ann's was the name of those tall plants. Thankfully, I like those and would gladly get some for him for next year. I swear I'm going to lure him into the gardening world yet,lol.
Okay, this takes us to the Rock Gardens at RBG, where colour abounded. I noticed there were many annuals here as well to add to the late season colours. Most visitors seemed to follow an obvious path into the garden as their starting point but I decided we would skirt the outside and head up the hill to work our way down. This plan suited DH well since the first big planting that greeted us was........
He said, "oh look, more!" As if I could've missed it

Now we're at the top of the hill looking down. The day was rather overcast and this may have been why there wasn't as many people visiting the gardens as I thought there would be. By the time I got to the top of the hill, I realized that I had worn the wrong pair of shoes. To navigate the stone paths and stairways, you really need to have a good pair of runners, not only for comfort but for safety. Some of the steps were wet or narrow so just take care if you ever decide to visit.

This pic was taken at the bottom of the hill, looking up to where I had taken the previous picture.

Another view from above to below. Made DH nervous as he thought I was a little too close to the edge, hehe. I got a bad habit of doing crazy stuff like that.

Great pictures Erynne. I've been there a couple of times. My FIL lived in Hamilton until he passed away 2 years ago.

I find Strobilanthes around here every year. Sometimes Super Store even has it. The specialty nurseries always have it.

Stone stairways like this one were tucked here and there.

Thanks brugcrazy! Isn't it a great place?! If you have photos, especially of RBG in spring & summer, would you mind posting them here?
Well lucky you to be able to get Strobilanthes so easily! Is it reasonably priced?

Another pathway. DH found a bench further down this path where he decided to sit for spell. Me, I couldn't sit, so as I ambled up and down the stairways, delved into nooks and crannies, DH communed with nature and the sounds of the waterfall.

Japanese False Cypress, Chamaecyparis pisifera 'Sungold'.
I really fell in love with this specimen.

Another view:

Japanese Maple 'Beni Otake'. This was my favourite tree in the whole of RBG. I really want to go back in several weeks to see the colour change that will take place. If you look closely, you can see the red starting at the top. I would love to see it "ablaze"!

Mums were everywhere: