Last time, I swear.  I'd have stopped after the first one, but there's just too much.    

One last look at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens.

Just a Little Green, Like the Color When the Spring is Born

And here, still more, from the Atlanta Botanical Garden.

If you've never been, you ought to go.  Atlanta's worth seeing anyway, as it's a big city with lots of things in it.  Go in the morning, before the air gets too hot, and wear a little bug spray, should the mosquitos grace you with their presence, and enjoy your time among the flowers.

(And if you get too hot, just duck into the Highlands Room, where the brisk mountain temperatures will cool the sweat on your skin, and quails will scurry along the floor and coo at you from behind the shielding plant fronds.)

Don't Tell Me The Truth That Your Heart Has Hardened

No fancy words today, but I don't think they were needed.  Instead, enjoy this sorry attempt at fancy photography, all taken at the Atlanta Botanical Garden.

Take Extra Care With Strangers; Even Flowers Have Their Dangers

A first look at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens.

I've been to parks and gardens before, but none of them have been quite this big.  The Atlanta garden sprawls.  I could (and probably will) feature it for days.  There's simply too much to put into one post.  There's almost too much to see in one day.  And somehow we managed zip through it in one morning.

The first big feature is the Canopy Walk.  It reaches out to you the second you move into the garden, the big metal structure disappearing into the trees.  We'll find a sign later, set into the flowers down below, that claims the steel supports were designed to mimic a dancing Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.  If you squint from ground level, you can almost just see it.  Ah, yes.  There's the kick of Fred's heel.  There's the flair of Ginger's dress.  "Dancing through the trees," they call it.  Some people are so innovative.

The forest rises around you, leafy branches reaching out to tickle your face.  The structure is huge, alien, but moves between the trees with such an easy fluidity it's hard to imagine the walkway ever not being there.  

Below, the garden buzzes.  I could hang my head over the side for hours, just to watch the wind rustle the underbrush.  People pass through the shade and don't even glance above their heads.  The sun paints the ground Seurat, peppering light where it can through the gently swaying trees.  It's an ever-changing canvas.  And there's still so much more to see.  

I Will Buy You a Garden Where Your Flowers Will Bloom

The flowers are in bloom in Wegerzyn Gardens, yet another part of the Five Rivers Metropark system.  As the parks go, it's not as vast as Cox Arboretum, or as deep as Carriage Hill, but there's a simple elegance to the flowers, and on this stuffy July day, it's refreshing to get out in the fresh air and hear the buzzing of the bees.

It so colorful.  Reds, blues, yellows, whites, and strange combinations of every color you can't name paint the walkways.  Little flying creatures buzz from one blossom to the next, bumblebees defying physics yet again, dragonflies zipping past your head so quickly you can't hardly see them, and the ever-present butterflies that were so exciting to see weeks ago and are now a lovely coincidence.  It's mostly quiet, save for the chirping insects and the odd, delighted squeals from the kids splashing around in the Children's Discovery Garden.

The garden feels like every book you ever loved as a child.  Over here, it's Alice in Wonderland.  With that lamp post, it's The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.  That barren field where the Ash Trees used to grow might just be Great Expectations, if only a bit more abstract. 

 

(You might not have loved Great Expectations as a child.  I wouldn't say that I loved Great Expectations as a child.  I can't even say that I love Great Expectations now, but it seemed, somehow, so appropriate.  Sorry.)

Next to the gardens is the boardwalk that takes you through the swamp.  It's cooler under the trees, but the branches hang on to the air, and the humidity clings to your skin like spiderwebs.  As do the actual spiderwebs.  Silk strands strung between the beams glisten under a captured ray of sunshine.  I do my best to avoid them, but I still feel the ghostly dance across the back of my hand, tugging on the hairs of my arm.  It's an eerie feeling, on of the reasons I hate spiderwebs.  (The other reason being SPIDERS.) 

Dirt paths lead away from the boardwalk, deep into the woods.  It's tempting, but the mosquitos are out in full force today - I've already got a bright red welt swelling on my pinky finger.  Perhaps another time, when I'm better prepared.

Like all good things, the children's Discovery Garden is infinitely cooler than anything else Wegerzyn has to offer.  Someday, when I'm rich and famous, I'm going to build a park where adults can get wet and dirty and stick their fingers into strange places and find little secret hidey-holes that they can crawl into and spy on people.  And a dinosaur.  Discovery is not just a child's medium.  I still like to play.