Saturday was a wonderful day in spite of several mess-ups on my part and on-again, off-again showers. Chris wanted to get to a good photo-op place he likes fairly early in the morning before bunches of people were on the scene so we started out around 8:30 or so, and went to this little "temple of Diana, Goddess of the Hunt" which is just a sort of gazebo type structure made out of vines (I'd assume either wisteria or grape) with a small statue of Diana inside. But it stands at the top of a hill (up which we trekked) and looks directly across to the Biltmore mansion on another hill so it is a nice place for pictures. I, of course, discovered when we got to the top of the hill, that I had forgotten to put my memory card back in my camera the night before but I used my phone and took a couple pictures.
and here is a view of the Biltmore mansion from Diana's hill:
And the next is just one of the many little fences all over the grounds and woodland walkways and I found them delightful.
We then made a quick trip back to the hotel to get my card because this was going to be a picture taking day.
Next stop was the greenhouse and it was just fantastic. A huge, beautiful structure crammed with all varieties of plants, all very lush, some exotic, some familiar, lots of colors, lots of aromas, and beautifully displayed. For example, there was one small room that had almost all of the plants displayed in old suitcases and steamer trunks! Another small room was just succulents. I'm just going to post a picture of the greenhouse first of all, then post all the pictures I took inside the greenhouse just as a show - no tell. :)
I
will say I thought this looked like a tiny miniature silver dollar plant - they were probably only about 1/4".
The next batch of pictures are of the gardens in front of the greenhouse. The pictures just don't do them justice at all, particularly the ones where I try and get a large area in the picture. The colors were
so bright and pretty!
The gardener's house - a delightful perc for some lucky gardener!
Lots of large beds of alyssum and oh, what a delicious aroma...
The lattice work at the back of this bed is part of a long arbor walk from the front of the greenhouse to the back wall of the enclosed garden.
and, espaliered trees of various types along the back wall of the garden.
And this was just the start of our day!! I have probably way too many pictures - for sure too many to upload to one post, so I will post another batch in "Saturday, Part II".
3 comments:
The flowers and plants in the greenhouse are ones we have in California. I looked for the suitcase & steamer trunk planters - did I miss them or you didn't get a picture? The fence photo is so charming and I think it would be a great inspiration for a miniature setting. I look forward to the next installment of your trip! Marlene
Hi Marlene - No, I didn't take a picture of that room...it would have been difficult to get a good distance from the various pieces cause it was a small room. Plus which the second problem I encountered that morning was finding that my camera battery (once we had retrieved my memory card) was getting low!! We charged that during our nice lunch break and I was good to go again. :) And when I posted my picture of the greenhouse, I thought "that's a good one for Lady Jane to make". Is she still doing miniature greenhouses?
Nice garden captures, Mom; I didn't get too many, for some reason!
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