Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Hershey Gardens

As I mentioned on Monday, my visit to the Spa at Hotel Hershey entitled me to free admission to the botanical gardens. Since it is November I didn't expect to see much more than what this shot displays. True, it is no where near peak season in any sense of the word but there were still some lovely sights and pleasant surprises to be found.



First I noticed this large tree trunk which had been carved. Apparently it was a rather revered old oak tree that had been struck by lightning earlier in the year. They did not want to have to cut down the whole tree so a chainsaw artist did some rather impressive carvings over the course of three days. There are various carvings of wildlife on all side of the trunk.




Here you can see the two owls, the eagle and a butterfly at the top of the tree. Can you believe this was done with chainsaws?



Since it was November and a little bit further south than where I am there were still a few trees with some lovely colored leaves on them.


This one and the prior one were in the Japanese garden. Don't ask me the names of trees and plants. There were signs telling me but I don't remember.



November also seems to be an interesting time for ornamental grasses.


There was a small section devoted just to ornamental grasses. The blonds and brunettes come out this time of year.



The big surprise was the rose garden. Number one, it was massive. I'd estimate is was roughly the size of a football field. Number two, it was still in bloom. They haven't had the hard killing frost we've had a bit to the north fortunately so that gave me some really lovely things to look at.

May I say, I took over a hundred pictures of roses alone. But when you are confronted with such surprising expressions of color it's hard not to. Plus, I didn't have anyone tugging on my arm to drag me along. That was nice.

Did I get carried away? Yep.


But even the monochrome roses were hard to resist. Doesn't that look like something Georgia O'Keefe would have painted?


Have you ever seen a rose with one color on top of the petal and another color on the underside of the petal? I hadn't.


This one you'll need to click to make it bigger. I was impressed that my camera caught the tiny insect on the edge of a petal. It's just a Kodak point and shoot. I was kind of tickled to get that detail. I still drool over higher quality cameras with macro lenses.


I took this and a couple other purple ones for my mom since it's her favorite color. This was my favorite because of the ruffly texture of the petals.


More surprising color. Getting tired of roses yet? Be patient, please. I had to narrow this all down from over 100 remember?


I thought the pastels and the radial symmetry (help me out geometry experts, is that what I mean?) were nice here.

I just call this Old and New. And there ends the tour of the rose garden.


The herb garden also had a few things in it that still had some life. Here we see Hens and Chicks.


Lavender. For you, Susie.


Don't ask me what this was called. I forget.


This looks like milkweed to me but it was growing very close to the ground whereas milkweed is quite tall. So I don;t know if that's what it was or not.


The evergreen section was in full pine cone bloom.


finally, I crunched my way out through the fallen leaves and headed off to my dear friend's house.

32 comments:

RiverPoet said...

The roses are amazing. I don't blame you for taking so many photos! We have one little white bud on a rose bush right now. It amazes me how late they bloom.

Peace - D

Cheesy said...

MMMMMM yummy photos!

Balou said...

Beautiful photos lime! I wish your blog had the smellavision plug-in. ;)

AndyT13 said...

Great political postings but I like the flowers much better.
Bee-yooo-tee-fool! Rock on!
Yer little point and shoot is doing you a solid. Big love!

furiousBall said...

beautiful shots. that chainsaw carving is seriously impressive

barman said...

Michelle those pictures were wonderful. I can not even imagine what you could do with a DSLR and a good macro lens.

Thank you so much for sharing. The roses especially were increadable. I do not think I could ever do roses myself except outside like that. I discovered a while ago that if I am indoors around a bunch of roses I get sick top my stomach. But outdoors... And that lavendar. I like lavendar. I wonder if I can find somewhere to sneek that in in my beds. The smell is just incredible.

That oak tree carving is something else. I to find it hard to believe a chainsaw, with a mighty skilled peron no less, did that.

Can you imagine what the gardens would be like in the spring? It was wonderful as it was but with everything in full bloom, the mind boggles.

Very nice Lime, very nice.

Desmond Jones said...

Beautiful photos. . .

Cooper said...

This has been perfect rose weather. My neighbor has a few bushes that are still blooming. Thanx for posting these...

On a different note, I think you will appreciate this...

Getting America Back on Track

Kat said...

Wow! I have never seen such gorgeous roses. Those are amazing! Just gorgeous!
I have got to go to this place!!!

S said...

Oh what beautiful roses! And thank you for the lavender. Since I cannot grow it, I trade, buy, borrow or however I can get my yearly batch of plants! This year I traded some sewing for three entire lavender plants! I love having a giant glass jar full of loose lavender flowers!

That tree which looks like marijuana leaves is a Japanese Maple.

Looks like you had a lovely time outside of the chocolate too!

Anonymous said...

All so lovely :) Fall is my favourite temperate season. Thanks for sharing :)

Jazz said...

Well hell, who knew roses still bloomed at this time of year outside the tropics.

Anonymous said...

Very impressive... and beautiful! Thanks for the tour. Yeah, those chainsaw artists are pretty incredible.

Bijoux said...

How lovely everything looks. Glad you were able to enjoy it on a nice day!

Logophile said...

Gorgeous!
I'm so glad you had uninterupted time for the garden...sooooo nice.
Gorgeous shots, your little point and click did well for you.
Add this to the list of places we need to go when I come visit :p

Anonymous said...

Wow stunning photos! Is it a Kodak EasyShare? My old camera was a Kodak with only 4.0 megapixels and it caught quite a bit of detail as yours did.

I love macro photos too! Especially of flowers. :)

Thanks for sharing.

Lapis Ruber said...

What a stunning set of photos. Thanks.

Anonymous said...

BEAUTIFUL!!!!! I love roses and your pics are stunning! :)

cathy said...

well everyone has already said it all about beauty and the like so all that is left is for me to copy some of your pics into my private folder to remember forever unless you object of course:)

Suldog said...

So lovely. I wish I was there again. What an amazingly nice place that is.

Anonymous said...

Both the first and the second tree after the chainsawed trunk are Japanese maples (Acer palmatum, I think they are also called)- the second one is a cut-leaf version.

SignGurl said...

Wow! I would have been like a kid in a candy store myself. Beautiful pictures, Michelle.

Anonymous said...

The garden is beautiful in all seasons, and roses are much hardier then we think. This I have learned in Norway hehehe. But I like the carved tree best. What would a garden be without birds.

Lulda Casadaga said...

Wonderful, beautiful pics...A rose is a rose...etc. Yes...wish we had smellavision.
I think you should print out that purple one for your mom and put it in a nice frame and give it to her for xmas.

I think I'm going to steal my best friends husbands' expensive photo equipment and meet you at that garden...we can then have a shoot off! :D

NYD said...

These are really pretty, but I was really imagining something more Willy Wonkaish from the Hershy hotel.

G-Man said...

Jeezus Limey, are you being channeled by Luther Burbank?

tsduff said...

Man alive woman - your pictures should be in the Sunset Gardening book (bible of gardening out here in the west)... those roses are incredible. Each one looks like an ad for propagation of the species or something... and as pure and special as the new fallen snow. I like the one you described as the Georgia O'Keefe one... I'm a great fan of white roses. Stunning spread my dear - happy birthday and wow.

Mona said...

wow, such lovely roses! Roses are my favorite flowers!

Mona said...

I could do with that kind of trip myself...getting my hose painted is really tiring me out !

Polt said...

I LOVE me some purple roses! :)

HUGS...

Bunny said...

Your pictures are very beautiful! Wonderful color and framing.

We went to Hershey Gardens the week after 9/11/2001. We attended a wedding outside Philly that weekend and stopped at Hershey on our way back. I could have stayed in the rose gardens forever. They had a yellow rose with an amazing lemony scent that I will never forget. I've never seen a rose like it, before or since.

Anonymous said...

I am going to have to learn to visit you daily if I am not to miss posts like this. Those pictures are worthy of a garden catalogue. Stunning.