Everyday adventures

Field Trip!

April 11, 2011

Last week Laure Ferlita and I took a field trip to the University of South Florida’s Botanical Gardens. Laure’s preparing an online class, “An Imaginary Visit to the Garden,” and I haven’t been to the gardens since last year’s trip to the spring plant festival.

The USFBG is a relaxed and friendly sort of garden. Mostly cared for by volunteers, it’s the perfect place to wander aimlessly, forgetting the world speeding by on the major streets that run on two sides of the garden. The carnivorous plants bloomed


and this lovely gentleman


presided over the meditation garden. (Unfortunately, the seating was damp and slimy-looking after the recent rains. We paid our respects and moved on.)

But of all the areas of the garden we visited, my favorite this time was:

Fairies are invisible and inaudible like angels. But their magic sparkles in nature. ~Lynn Holland

Faery (or fairy) houses, musical frogs, gnomes and fairies of all sorts peeked out from the plantings of impatiens, violas, ornamental cabbage and other magical plants.




(Check out Laure’s blog post confirming this!)

Taking a few hours to explore and unwind invigorated us both. And there’s always a little touch of magic in a garden. Who knows--maybe it’s fairy magic!

Where do you go to unwind?