So much beauty to be had.
A wide view in the Souto Memorial Garden, one of many distinct collections at Juniper Level Botanic Garden.
The gift of a meandering walk through an extraordinary garden. Here I offer you a few photographs from Juniper Level Botanic Garden made in the soft light of a late afternoon in early December. So much beauty to be had.
Form, texture, color, light. I could ponder just this juxtaposition for a long time.
A few miles south of Raleigh, NC there is a world class botanic garden. People come from around the country, and the globe, to see the place that Tony Avent has created. Juniper Level Botanic Garden (JLBG), and Plant Delights Nursery, encompass 28 acres and contain more than 28,000 types of plants. Yes, you read that right. The mission is to collect, research, conserve, and share plant diversity. To that end, Plant Delights Nursery at JLBG has shipped more than 3 million plants to gardeners and other botanic collections around the world.
I made my first visit here only three years ago, and it changed my life. While this might sound like an exaggeration, I assure you it isn’t. (Ask my husband, who has helped me plant many of the dozens of plants I’ve acquired there.) But it’s not about quantity, for me it’s about learning to include rare and unusual plants alongside oft used natives. It’s about a lot more, but that’s for another time.
Edgeworthia, is a deciduous shrub that is native to woodland areas in the Himalayas and China, but given the right garden placement, can thrive in zones 7B through 10.
Gardening and photography go together in my world. Both are forms of meditation, and combined with mindfulness and curiosity, a walk thru a garden offers many glimpses into the beautiful design work of nature, and of humankind. The gallery below can be viewed in a Lightbox by simply clicking on any photograph. I hope you enjoy.
Guess who I ran into on my photography visit? Tony Avent himself was taking advantage of the soft light to update some photographs for the catalog. And we discovered we both shoot with Fujifilm cameras! I’m currently using a Fujifilm XH-1, and Tony Avent shoots with a FujifilmXT-4.
If you’d like to visit the gardens you can find out more here.
Tony Avent photographing in his gardens.
