Lens-Artists Photo Challenge – Delicate

Pick almost any adjective that you would care to mention and you could probably pair it with ‘nature.’  Nature can be many things; spectacular, colorful, harsh, unforgiving, picturesque and so much more. This week Ann-Christine has chosen Delicate as the subject for the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge and that can most definitely be applied to nature.

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Coming To A Point – At The Chicago Botanic Garden

Going through the photo files looking for spiky, pointy or otherwise sharp and jagged objects for Becky’s Spiky Squares photo challenge, I came across a few from the Chicago Botanic Garden.

The Greenhouse Effect

Things tend to take on a rather surreal appearance in the greenhouse; a few more of the images that I captured the other day at the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Winter in the Greenhouse

We had, initially, been disappointed upon our arrival at the Chicago Botanic Garden to find that only one section of the greenhouse was open to the public.  I’d forgotten about preparations for the upcoming Orchid Festival in February.  Apparently we were the only ones that weren’t aware of this since we were on our own, wandering around among the cacti.  This turned out to be a good thing as it’s usually quite busy in there during the winter months and, not having to feel obliged to move along and make room for other people, I was able to take my time and capture plenty of images.  Having driven all the way to the Garden I wasn’t about to go home empty-handed (photographically speaking.)

If you follow my blog on a regular basis you will know that I don’t spend too much time reading labels and notices when I’m taking pictures so I can’t tell you what most of these plants are called, other than to say there were a lot of spiky things and succulent things.

There were a lot of lovely flowers too, that helped to brighten an extremely gloomy day, although I really shouldn’t complain about the weather as it’s been an exceptionally mild winter here in the Chicago area so far.

Please join me for another walk around the greenhouse in winter in a future post and thanks for stopping by.

The Conservatory At Biltmore

Everything about the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina is on a lavish scale and the conservatory, although not as large as some, is packed with every variety of hothouse plant imaginable.

Designed by architect Richard Morris Hunt, the conservatory provided flowers and plants for Biltmore House during the Vanderbilt family’s time there.

The orchid room is filled with exotic blooms in gorgeous colors.

Many of the plants were familiar to us but there were others that we had never seen before.

 

So many different colors, shapes and textures at every turn.

And quiet places to sit and enjoy the surroundings.

From weird to wonderful, every nook and cranny was filled with plants to delight the eye and capture the imagination. Nature is amazing, isn’t it!

The conservatory at Biltmore has something of interest for everyone.