A Visit to a Botanical Garden - Part 1

Signage:  "You Are Here"

My gardener friend M's birthday gift to me was two tickets to the Descanso Gardens, a 150 acre botanical garden he had been eager for me to visit.  So, on my birthday, my daughter and I visited the gardens for the first time.

It was a lovely day, weather-wise, to visit the garden.  Partly cloudy with an afternoon high of a very comfortable 83F,  Not too sunny, not too hot, and not cold.

The garden consists of various smaller gardens and cultivated areas as well as some uncultivated, wild areas.  We weren't sure just how much I could walk without getting too tired and although wheel chairs were available on a first come first serve basis, according to the Garden's website, I didn't want my daughter to have to push me in a wheel chair.  So, we planned to visit just a couple of the areas on this visit and leave the other areas for another visit, at a later date. 

We first visited the Japanese Garden, with its blue tiled tea house, raked-gravel garden, bridge, stream and pond, koi fish, and camellias in bloom:

The Entrance to the Japanese Garden
(Yes, that's me being a lantern head)

The Japanese Garden with Tea House in the Background

Bamboo Water Spout

The Bridge over the Stream

Another View of the Bridge and Stream

Koi Fish in the Pond

Koi Fish

And a Duck

The Raked Gravel Garden

Camellias in the Japanese Garden

Then, we walked past the Lilac Garden, where heat-tolerant cultivars of lilacs which have been bred at the Descanso Gardens are planted.  Unfortunately, this was not the season for lilacs and the trees were mostly dormant.  

Lilac Garden

We will have to come back in the spring when the lilacs will be blooming.

From there, we proceeded to the Ancient Forest, but, that is a post for another day!

I am so grateful to M for the lovely birthday gift!  I am so glad that I was given this opportunity to visit this botanical garden.