from Caren from the Velveteria who is a member and had extra passes...
It was really nice to be able to finally use the tickets before they expired (end of April was the deadline)...
Fresh from our breakfast and coffee break, the drive here was a few minutes away in the well-to-do- city of San Marino, close to the renowned CalTech University as well as Pie 'n Burger.
The day was beginning to warm up and we were set to view the gardens (more so than the museum/art exhibits).
The garden is divided into various gardens arranged by botanical themes, such as the "Desert Garden", "Japanese Garden", "Lily Ponds" to name a few. Below amazing specimens from the Desert Garden which is one of the largest and oldest collection of cacti and succulents in the world. This garden is nearly 100 years old and is spectacular to see in person.
My Mexican friends would say, "Hey, you can eat those cactus fruits!" They are called 'tuna' and are sometimes sold in Mexican markets (red or white fruits with black seeds inside)
Near the Lily Ponds were these gorgeous clivias (bulb flowers from South Africa).
Sad that there was a sign like this there.
Monstera deliciosa leaves....
A duck made itself at home on top of this statue's head...
Rhododendrons:
Callistemon (bottle brush tree), native to Australia:
Bonsai collection and Zen rock garden in the Japanese Garden area:
What gorgeous views...
This was the view on the other side of the bridge on the hill...
The Rose Garden wasn't in bloom yet...
The herb garden had such a wide variety of plants along with ornamental fruit trees...
Nott sure what this was, but there were a lot of these near the Huntington Library Art Gallery. We should've gone in but TC and I were getting hungry and wanted lunch soon. I knew that Gainsborough's famous painting "Blue Boy" was here. It is located across from it's partner, "Pinkie". I regret us not going in to see it.
This was one of the hunting statues outside the art gallery. It shows a stag being attacked by...dogs? It's actually pretty vicious.
On a lighter note...look PRetty flowers! These look like apple blossoms but I could be wrong.
Wisteria - I used a filter where I increased the purple/blueness of the blooms.
The gardens here are so vast. There are also pavilions and classical statues on the grounds as well.
More info on the library and its founder, Henry E. Huntington here.
They also offer tea at the Rose Garden tea room. Read about Ed from Yuma's visit here along with Kirbie's visit where they enjoyed the tea room experience.
Wandering Chopsticks also visited back in 2008 (the Chinese Garden) and again in later that same year (the Japanese Garden); her posts have great photos.
The Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino CA 91108
(626) 405-2100
www.huntington.org
If we ever go here again, we would have to visit the areas we skipped over like the Chinese Garden (the largest outside of China), the actual art galleries, and the other gardens.
2 comments:
I LOVE this post with pictures! It's so gorgeous there. Now I feel like I should learn to use my camera by shooting nature photos. One of my goals for the future anyway.
Thanks Lynn. This was just my camera phone not one of those DSLR's though, but thank you! There are so many nice places in SD to practice shooting nature photos. You would have fun exploring.
Post a Comment