Visit to the Botanical Garden

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Oct 10, 2005

Botanical gardens are public places were plants are grown both for display and for scientific study and where educational programs are often arranged for both adults and children.

An arboretum, for example, is a type of botanical garden which is devoted primarily to the growing of woody plants such as shrubs and trees.

The plants in botanical gardens are often diverse and arranged in habitat groups, such as rock gardens, aquatic gardens, desert gardens, tropical gardens, and rose gardens.

Some of my favorite day-trips are visits to local botanical gardens several times during the year. Repeat visits can be very interesting as the plant material varies from flower bulbs, forsythia and rhododendron in the spring, annuals, roses, and lilies in summer, and tree foliage and chrysanthemum in the fall.

Besides the plant experience, most botanical gardens also have enough green grass areas to allow playtime for a family for a whole day.

About one hours drive from where I live, you find the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens which is the subject of this visit report. Some of the key features are the Cranford Rose Garden, The Japanese Water Garden, and the Scent Gardens. It also have an area exclusively for kids where they grow plants in their own plots. If you visit in spring, you do not want to miss the areas dedicated to rhododendron, daffodils, and lilacs (Syringa). I visited in mid summer just as the roses, lilies, and summer annuals were blooming.