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With everything that's been going on this year so far, we haven't had many chances to get out and do much.
One of the things that we'd wanted to do was visit one of the temporary exhibits at the Denver Botanic Gardens: their orchid showcase. Then my appendix tried to kill me, and we both pretty much entirely forgot about it. At some point in the second week of February Alex remembered and suggested we try to go sometime, so I looked it up to check how long the exhibit was running... to discover it was only going through Monday the 16th. That narrowed down our options a bit, but luckily we were both feeling well enough to go, and the decidedly un-winter-like weather continued to cooperate with us.
And it was lovely! The orchids were mostly in the "orangery," a stretch of semi-indoor/semi-open space that looks in on the greenhouses and has some citrus trees and such year-round. We spent most of our time there and in the big conservatory, though we did take a walk around the rest of the gardens as well.
The pictures in this post are primarily not of the orchids, and the orchids will get their own post.
We did get to see the koi, which are always a favorite!
The view when you walk in to the main building.
Here you obviously can see a lot of orchids on display around the water feature. (I'm fond of the ones in the tentacle-y hanging pots.)
There was also some decoration for Lunar New Year.
We went into the conservatory, which I always love walking around. Give me all the indoor rainforest.
So many pods on the cocoa tree!
A cute hidden spray of flowers.
I am very charmed by these leaves that all but vacuum seal themselves to the tree they're growing on. They look like little scales.
Dart frog!
These little flowers were pretty and cute, and on closer inspection, each little flower had a teeny tiny ant on it! The image does not really convey how TINY these little ants were. Smaller than typical little black sugar ants. TINY. Getting little nectar drinks.
I think insects are cute, so this ant taking a step from one flower to another was extremely adorable, imo.
An interesting flower.
After this, it was down to the orangery.
The Denver Botanic Gardens has a very extensive bonsai collection, which is very cool. Most of them are off-display for the season (and will be outside for the summer.)
This one is on display inside, so it can be seen blooming. A bougainvillea! (Been in training as a bonsai for over 25 years, now!)
Carnivorous plant terrariums, my beloved. A Venus flytrap.
A random non-orchid. Look at this furry cactus flower!
The main feature of the orangery was the orchids, so most of those will be in the next post. After this, we headed outside to do a quick wander around the rest of the gardens.
It felt a little too soon for the hyacinths to be pushing their way up. Usually we don't see those until March...
The fish weren't too sad about the warm weather!
One of my favorite koi in the pond: this white-gold one with the extra fancy fins.
The fancy yellow-gold one is Alex's favorite. But so many cool and pretty koi!
This one makes me laugh. The yellow one was so excited at the potential for food that it lifted that little orange one out of the water on its head entirely!
They're so pretty.
I really like the extra-fancy finned fish, though there are fairly few of them in the pond. It's often just been the silvery white one and the bright yellow one. This year, we were excited to see a few younger ones with the same extra-long fins:
This one is very cute already, and will be lovely when it grows up more.
Snowdrops!
Too early for peonies to be trying to get in on anything!
It was a really beautiful day to be out! I'm glad we had the chance to go before the exhibit shut down. The orchids themselves were gorgeous, and pics of them will be in a different post!
One of the things that we'd wanted to do was visit one of the temporary exhibits at the Denver Botanic Gardens: their orchid showcase. Then my appendix tried to kill me, and we both pretty much entirely forgot about it. At some point in the second week of February Alex remembered and suggested we try to go sometime, so I looked it up to check how long the exhibit was running... to discover it was only going through Monday the 16th. That narrowed down our options a bit, but luckily we were both feeling well enough to go, and the decidedly un-winter-like weather continued to cooperate with us.
And it was lovely! The orchids were mostly in the "orangery," a stretch of semi-indoor/semi-open space that looks in on the greenhouses and has some citrus trees and such year-round. We spent most of our time there and in the big conservatory, though we did take a walk around the rest of the gardens as well.
The pictures in this post are primarily not of the orchids, and the orchids will get their own post.
We did get to see the koi, which are always a favorite!
The view when you walk in to the main building.
Here you obviously can see a lot of orchids on display around the water feature. (I'm fond of the ones in the tentacle-y hanging pots.)
Nineteen more pictures from the gardens:
There was also some decoration for Lunar New Year.
We went into the conservatory, which I always love walking around. Give me all the indoor rainforest.
So many pods on the cocoa tree!
A cute hidden spray of flowers.
I am very charmed by these leaves that all but vacuum seal themselves to the tree they're growing on. They look like little scales.
Dart frog!
These little flowers were pretty and cute, and on closer inspection, each little flower had a teeny tiny ant on it! The image does not really convey how TINY these little ants were. Smaller than typical little black sugar ants. TINY. Getting little nectar drinks.
I think insects are cute, so this ant taking a step from one flower to another was extremely adorable, imo.
An interesting flower.
After this, it was down to the orangery.
The Denver Botanic Gardens has a very extensive bonsai collection, which is very cool. Most of them are off-display for the season (and will be outside for the summer.)
This one is on display inside, so it can be seen blooming. A bougainvillea! (Been in training as a bonsai for over 25 years, now!)
Carnivorous plant terrariums, my beloved. A Venus flytrap.
A random non-orchid. Look at this furry cactus flower!
The main feature of the orangery was the orchids, so most of those will be in the next post. After this, we headed outside to do a quick wander around the rest of the gardens.
It felt a little too soon for the hyacinths to be pushing their way up. Usually we don't see those until March...
The fish weren't too sad about the warm weather!
One of my favorite koi in the pond: this white-gold one with the extra fancy fins.
The fancy yellow-gold one is Alex's favorite. But so many cool and pretty koi!
This one makes me laugh. The yellow one was so excited at the potential for food that it lifted that little orange one out of the water on its head entirely!
They're so pretty.
I really like the extra-fancy finned fish, though there are fairly few of them in the pond. It's often just been the silvery white one and the bright yellow one. This year, we were excited to see a few younger ones with the same extra-long fins:
This one is very cute already, and will be lovely when it grows up more.
Snowdrops!
Too early for peonies to be trying to get in on anything!
It was a really beautiful day to be out! I'm glad we had the chance to go before the exhibit shut down. The orchids themselves were gorgeous, and pics of them will be in a different post!
