Yesterday was Earth Day and in celebration of creation I  went to the Botanical Gardens.  It was a chilly day but the sun was shining and I enjoyed a walk around the gardens with a couple of friends.  While I loved being outside and soaking in all the new life it wasn’t until I uploaded my pictures this morning that I was struck with the splendor of it all.  There is so much in the details that one is able to capture with a camera.  Walking through the garden gives a big-picture view – the greenness of the grass, the blossoming trees, the new growth, the vast variety.  Having a camera allows one to focus on the tiny little details that can so easily be missed during a walk.  Here’s some pictures that give a bit of the big picture but most are of the minutia that can take ones breath away.  And just so you know how glorious it all was nothing has been done to these photos.  In a day of rampant photo editing I think it’s important to note that these are straight out of camera.

Sweet little couple...

As you can tell from the pictures some plants are at the full height of bloom while others are just beginning and still others that had lost their flowers.  I think this has something to do with the warm spell followed by the snow storm followed by another warm spell followed by the current cold spell.  Isn’t it amazing that these plants survive the mercurial weather here at all – let alone look so beautiful.  Following the walk through the gardens I picked up some groceries and was on my way home when I passed by a camellia.  In the yard of the home I grew up in in California there was a huge camellia hedge and it was a favorite hiding place during games of Hide-and-Seek.  For years I thought that it was just an enormous rose plant – I have a strange brain that can make some illogical leaps.  Anyway, upon seeing this camellia plant yesterday I had to put down my groceries and pull out my camera because it was absolutely perfection.