His Madness and I took a day trip to Madison last month to celebrate our anniversary and we spent some time at Olbrich Gardens. After the fiasco our backyard turned into, I was on a mission to check out any new plants they might be showcasing and pick up some ideas to try out next year.
Of course there are a lot of areas in their gardens I can only dream of recreating!
One of thy favorite places is the Thai pavilion or sala, with its exotic statuary and tropical garden. It's quite a contrast to all the corn fields and dairy cattle we drove past to get there, ha!
In Thailand, these pavilions are used as roadside shelters from the sun or rain and on this day it was useful for both! Typically, they're not this fancy unless they're located near a palace or temple. It was a very generous gift from the government of Thailand and the Thai Chapter of the UW Alumni Association to the University of Wisconsin.
Since its opening, almost twenty years ago now, we've been able to watch the trees and shrubs slowly mature. The landscape designers have done a great job of finding trees and plants that look native to Asia but can still survive the winters here.
Normally, they add quite a few tropical plants along with colorful annuals during the summer and this year they seemed particularly happy with all the rain and heat we've had.
The rain clouds moved in just as I was trying to get a photo of the sunlight sparkling off the hundreds of tiny mirrors inlaid into the supporting brackets. Instead they look blue because they picked up the sky being reflected in the water, ha! They still looks pretty anyway.
A close inspection of these lush plants at the back of the pavilion revealed nothing more exotic than coleus, caladium and ornamental banana. Guess it's all about what we think we see, ha!
I'd love to visit Thailand someday but until we can all safely travel again we are lucky to have this beautiful pavilion to enjoy. There are other posts from my previous visits here and here.
It's so easy to take things for granted, especially simple things like walking in a pretty garden. It was great to get back to a place that we missed so much during the covid closures.
Now that Labor Day is here and the sun has metaphorically set on summer, it's exciting to look forward to autumn but also sad to look back at all the catastrophic events. To be fair, the summer wasn't all bad and thankfully, most of us were lucky enough to be far away from the worst tragedies. Still, between covid, wildfires, hurricanes and floods, not to mention the Taliban, there was a lot of misery out there. It used to be foreign countries that needed our help, not that they still don't, but now it's here too! So, to feel less helpless, I've been contributing to disaster aid funds, trying to be environmentally responsible, and supporting politicians who believe in science. That won't be enough but it's a start and it gives me hope that things can get better.
The Skeleton Crew had a great holiday weekend and they hope you did too!
Thanks for stopping by, stay safe and we will see you soon.
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