Roseate Spoonbills on Big Slough

Roseate Spoonbills on Big Slough
Roseate Spoonbills on Big Slough

Sunday, December 4, 2016

A Visit to South Texas Botanical Garden and Nature Center

I finally had enough of sitting around and wanted to visit friends in Corpus Christi before going on to visit my daugher for Thanksgiving. So I practiced shifting my five-on-the-floor left handed, then took off.

I spent several cloudy days waiting for a chance to visit the botanical gardens there. South Texas Botanical Garden and Nature Center is fairly new, (since 1996) but is growing and changing.

It also maintains a place for rescued parrots - there are several big flight cages and has an exhibit of snakes and other reptiles.





I had never been to the various greenhouses so was fascinated to find one was devoted to bromeliads. They are hanging from all the windows and walls, as well as on shelves and the floor.




One of the few bromeliad blooms

A second, huge, two room greenhouse was devoted to orchids, many of which were in bloom.  I think I have at least forty pictures of blooms but I tried to restrain myself in sharing with you. 












There are gardens all along the trails and greenhouses. I particularly enjoyed all the butterflies that were flitting around.  Most of them were queens.


I loved the colors and textures of these fall leaves against the grass stems


One of the queen butterflies

The garden has extensive rose beds and a lot of them were also in bloom. I fell in love with almost all of them. These were some of my favorite pictures of them.







I spent a lot of time on this bed of mistflower trying to get pictures of butterflies. Just I got in place to catch several of them, a toddler ran up and chased them away. But I still captured a few after waiting a few minutes.






Then I walked on through a lovely picnic area to trails that run around a lake.  There weren't many birds around, but I suspect that at times, this would be a great birding spot. But it is a wonderful place for a hike at any time.






When the trails brought me back to the developed gardens, I found a large cactus garden. The day was getting ever more cloudy so these will be much prettier on a sunny day.






By this time I was getting a little tired and was ready for a rest so was delighted to find a pair of couches just sitting in an outdoor room.  But they turned out to be a little harder than I expected.  They were made of stone. Even the textiles!




From the couch, I could enjoy the view of this bronze showing the history of the area, with farm workers getting a drink at the well.




I love chile pequins, the ancestral pepper. They work really well as a ground cover under trees.  I had never seen them used as a companion plant with pomegranates.  Now I wonder how well the two would combine into a recipe.




On the personal front, I'm out of my sling and working to get some of the use of my hand and shoulder back.  I'll be leaving for Louisiana this week.  But I have several other little adventures to share with you.  It still hurts to use my computer and I've been busy visiting and traveling but should be able to get at least one blog a week written. Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are keeping the Christmas madness at bay. 

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