I had an early start from Janesville this morning as I started my journey east to Michigan for the
All-America Selections Summer Summit. I made good time until I hit the Chicago area and now realize that you can never truly miss rush hour or at least some white knuckle congestion. I sure wish I had the I-PASS to avoid the toll booths! I ended up in Grand Rapids, MI in the late morning and enjoyed visiting the
Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park. This was my third visit to these gardens and I enjoyed my two hours exploring. The weather was sunny and in the mid 80 degrees F. These are just some of the hundreds of photos I took of the gardens, sculptures, conservatories and other neat things at this top notch garden. Opened in 1995, the 132 acre site also has woodlands, wetlands, gardens, meadows and other features. Check out
www.meijergardens.org for more information on this destination garden. I enjoyed the old farmstead gardens, Lena Meijer Children's Garden (see below) and the huge horse sculpture (below). The Children's Garden had some great sensory displays and I got some great ideas. I took the time to wander the
entire gardens and stumbled on some sections that I had not previously seen. Further below is a huge waterfall (new to me) that I thought was impressive. I enjoyed lunch at their cafe' and drove another hour east to East Lansing to check in to the conference hotel. See further below for part 2 of my day.
Above is that neat waterfall garden. I also took oodles of waterlily (
Nymphaea) photos in that garden as they had so many showy colors near the shoreline. They also had an awesome boardwalk thru a wetland. I saw turtles, a muskrat and oodles of wetland birds. Note below the clever use of mirrors in this courtyard garden in the conservatory. The mirrors make the space look larger...
The hotel I'm staying at these next couple of days is right on the north edge of the Michigan State University (
MSU) campus. Once I got all my stuff settled in the room, I decided to walk around campus. I was struck by two things immediately. Number 1, It was still quite sunny and hot and I was uber-thirsty and number 2, I hardly saw anyone walking around. Granted, fall semester doesn't start for another month but I had free range of the campus. I've been to MSU a couple times in the past and love the campus. I noted the black squirrel population as I remembered seeing it in the past. The architecture was quite nice and despite some significant construction in th
e middle of campus, I enjoyed my self-guided tour. It looked quite dry in East Lansing too and I imagine they've had the same drought that we've experienced. The campus itself is known to have wonderful trees (most with signs) and landscaping and MSU has a very strong horticulture program. Part of our conference tour Wednesday will involve seeing more of the trial gardens here on campus as well as the famous 4H Children's Garden. However, this afternoon, I toured the
W.J. Beal Botanic Garden right on campus. Founded in 1873 by Professor William James Beal, this garden is considered the oldest, continually operated university botanical garden. This small garden has 5,000 types of plants. About seven years ago, the RBG grounds staff did a three day tour of gardens in Michigan and we ended up in this same garden on campus (we also toured the rest of campus). This garden is certainly a teaching garden with very informative signs for a vast array of plant materials arranged by family, region of origin, function, etc. My favorite section is the labeled collection of weeds! This was really a nice garden and not 10 minutes from my hotel. A couple of photos down is a cool reflection of a tree in a pool with a bench on the far side. The conference gets more involved after lunch tomorrow but my morning will be absorbed by a trip north to Midland, MI to see
Dow Gardens (my first visit!). I'm sure all is well at RBG with hour dedicated grounds staff and talented volunteers keeping any eye on the gardens. I'll keep trying to blog and am ticked off there was no free WI-FI in the room ($, ugh).
MSU) campus. Once I got all my stuff settled in the room, I decided to walk around campus. I was struck by two things immediately. Number 1, It was still quite sunny and hot and I was uber-thirsty and number 2, I hardly saw anyone walking around. Granted, fall semester doesn't start for another month but I had free range of the campus. I've been to MSU a couple times in the past and love the campus. I noted the black squirrel population as I remembered seeing it in the past. The architecture was quite nice and despite some significant construction in th
e middle of campus, I enjoyed my self-guided tour. It looked quite dry in East Lansing too and I imagine they've had the same drought that we've experienced. The campus itself is known to have wonderful trees (most with signs) and landscaping and MSU has a very strong horticulture program. Part of our conference tour Wednesday will involve seeing more of the trial gardens here on campus as well as the famous 4H Children's Garden. However, this afternoon, I toured the W.J. Beal Botanic Garden right on campus. Founded in 1873 by Professor William James Beal, this garden is considered the oldest, continually operated university botanical garden. This small garden has 5,000 types of plants. About seven years ago, the RBG grounds staff did a three day tour of gardens in Michigan and we ended up in this same garden on campus (we also toured the rest of campus). This garden is certainly a teaching garden with very informative signs for a vast array of plant materials arranged by family, region of origin, function, etc. My favorite section is the labeled collection of weeds! This was really a nice garden and not 10 minutes from my hotel. A couple of photos down is a cool reflection of a tree in a pool with a bench on the far side. The conference gets more involved after lunch tomorrow but my morning will be absorbed by a trip north to Midland, MI to see Dow Gardens (my first visit!). I'm sure all is well at RBG with hour dedicated grounds staff and talented volunteers keeping any eye on the gardens. I'll keep trying to blog and am ticked off there was no free WI-FI in the room ($, ugh).
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