Naples Botanical Garden

Yesterday was our second visit to the Naples Botanical Gardens with our friend Rick, often nicknamed Rickster. His membership renewal was due yesterday, so we must have been there a year ago.  Last year there was lots of construction to create an orchid display area. The results were nothing short of stunning, but as it turns out, I don't have a lot of orchid pictures to share from the orchid display area; most of the orchid pictures are from orchids set in trees throughout the gardens.

At the entrance, they have a few ponds with these lovely waterlilies.  

Also at the entrance were these spectacular leaves, a marvel of engineering beauty.

Further along in the garden, we saw some Calabash trees in bloom: they bloom right from the trunk or from the bark on a branch.  Neat or what?

Many trees throughout the gardens have orchids tied on to them. Many varieties are being used and if they should all 'take', it should be quite a show over the next many years.

Some of these orchids are hybrids and quite spectacular.  It's exciting to see orchids up in the air where they belong.  Considering this is a very young botanical garden, the amount of established and flourishing airborne orchids is quite outstanding.

There are impressive sculptures throughout the gardens: here are a few Herons in cast aluminium.

There are quite a few arbours in the gardens, this one covered in Queen's Wreath.  It looks like Wisteria, but actually is quite different.  Another popular name for Queen's Wreath is apparently the sand paper plant since the backs of the leaves are very sandpaper like.

Next we have Peter and Rickster ambling under this magical place.

Here's another sculpture that was quite exciting.  Hope you like it also.

They planted a bunch of Coconut seeds, and it was interesting to see what kinds of palms grew from the seeds.

After a day of ambling among the plants, it is compulsory to relax a bit...  Pete does it well...

Chris and Joan on the other hand, don't do relax all that quietly...

This is from a bush that blooms this way.  What fun.

Next is a little orchid that I think is a Florida native; it sure looks at home and brings some colour and brightness up about 20 feet from the floor.

Below a waterfall, these waterlines sported a three inch high border: quite fascinating for us.

The garden also has a great butterfly garden: Here's the underside of a Zebra butterfly.

Next is Joan and Rick, in the butterfly garden.  What a great place for friends to be.

Here's a little [about an inch high] Atala butterfly, once thought to be nearly extinct. Now it seems to be doing well, thanks to all those responsible.

Of course, this is one of my favourites, usually found along the expressways near San Diego.

So there you have it, our revisit to the Naples Botanical Gardens.  I sure hope you enjoyed our visit as much as we did.