'The Curious Garden'

 

My annual visit to the Atlanta Botanical Garden and the first visit since the extraordinary Chihuly Glass exhibit last Spring.  In some areas of the garden it was hard not to feel that there was something 'missing', remembering the amazing glass sculptures that had been there.

 

However, the gardens are beautiful in their own right and currently there is a new exhibition 'The Curious Garden' - featuring 11 installations each created for a specific site in the gardens using altered natural materials (such as these painted trees) and man made materials, such as these huge red discs, high in the trees over the canopy boardwalk.

 

Entitled 'dilated pupils' these discs are intended to draw the eye to the tops of these very tall and ancient forest trees.

 

Elsewhere in the forest, some more painted trees..

 

These trees are young maples which are cut from plantations to thin out the crop - hence they are all very similar in shape.

(The exception, of course, being the painted tree at the top of this post which is an old cherry tree which had died over the winter and was given a 'last Spring hurrah' with bright pink paint.

 

In the formal part of the garden, the beds around the Chihuly fountain (which is a permanent fixture since the first exhibition in the garden in 2005), were all planted with white flowers..

 

Many different white flowers were featured - some flagging a little in the heat..

 

Probably my favourite white flower - though not in the 'White Garden' exhibit - was this Deciduous Camellia, which I don't ever remember seeing before..

 

Another exhibit was the 'Floating Fiddlehead'..

 

This was in the new and aptly named Skyline Garden..

 

Inside the conservatory, an exhibit called 'Antebellum Aerophyte', which was lovely to see but awkward to capture well in a photograph..

 

 

 

In the tropical house, and exhibit 'chains' was self explanatory..

 

It called to mind and reflected the natural hangings in the same glasshouse..

 

These are roots of a trailing plant, reaching to the ground from the top of the conservatory.

 

This is part of a colourful exhibit called 'Floralab'.

 

In the Orchid House (more of that another day), this exhibit was 'Chalices'.

 

Back outside and another exhibit in the woods - on a stream bed and under a bridge 'the mountain flows, the river sits'.

 

Certainly some thought-provoking exhibits in an already lovely garden.