Botanical Gardens
With your vacation at your doorstep you will all have some free time on your hands right? I did anyways. This year, my husband and I decided to stay home. It’s hard to go somewhere if you have 3 dogs, 2 pigs, an ever increasing number of chickens, a pond full of koi and a cat. Someone has to feed, clean and walk them (well, not the fish) and with most of our family members on vacation, we decided to stay home and enjoy the peace and quiet. Well, that…and going places to make an insane amount of photos since we kind of are addicted to that. So we did a zoo, a butterfly farm, a few bird hides, a nature reserve, a visit to the countryside etc. Great times, loads of pics and many hours of editing. And just as I thought we were running out of ideas, my husband suggested we`d go to a botanical garden. I had never been to one, I didn’t know what it was really. Sure, I knew they are big gardens where you can walk around in, but I didn’t really know anything about their purpose. I was just interested in many lovely photographs! So we went there and I was shocked. This was so beautiful! So much better than I expected! This particular one was built on old fortresses, so there was a lot of difference in height. It had water and all kinds of wildlife like kingfishers and other birds, bumblebees, bees, butterflies…I couldn’t get enough! There was color everywhere, I saw the most amazing flowers and the weirdest plants all around me. And magnificent trees too. I thought about it for a little while and decided to do the overview photos in HDR, and make use of that wonderful fisheye lens, and I also brought my macro lens for the flowers and the close-ups. So…with changing lenses and going uphill and seeing so many new and wonderful things around every corner, it took me almost 6 hours to get everything I wanted. And believe me, the garden wasn’t THAT big! This was a great idea, I had a wonderful time. As a bonus there was this little teahouse where we had lunch, surrounded by hungry jackdaws waiting for you to either give them the crumbs or an opportunity to steal them. The perfect ending of a perfect day! This particular garden belonged to the university of Utrecht, in the Netherlands. And when I got home, I decided I wanted to know more about botanical gardens, because we have so many of them in the country! And of course Id share the info with you.
Garden Tripod 13 ~ page 50