STREET FLOWERS OF CHICAGO

Spring in Chicago is absolutely beautiful - When it's Spring Again I'll Bring Again, Tulips from Michigan Avenue.

Breathtaking - all I wanted to do was walk up and down Michigan Avenue looking at the gorgeous containers, the beds of tulips that swept up and down the street for as far as I could see.

Interesting containers on the sidewalk

When it's spring again,

Street corner

I'll bring again,

Tulips from Amsterdam - or Chicago in this case...

Beautiful tulips, beautiful city

How beautiful is this street planting?

Japanese maples planted amongst the bulbs

Hydrangeas, pussy willow branches, annuals shining bright

I'm not the only one staring and photographing

Orange tulips and stream on the street

Gorgeous spring containers

Outside a hotel on the street

Out on the pavement - gorgeous

Pots of cyclamen and cascading annuals with pussy willow sticks

Another beautiful street corner

I LOVE Chicago - chilly but not too windy

Who would have thought - pink and orange

More containers just out on the sidewalk

And I will be back here again too - can't wait.....

NAPLES BOTANICAL GARDENS - FLORIDA

On a recent visit to Naples, FL I had to stop at the fairly new Naples Botanical Garden - and what a treat.  

Magnificent display of bromeliads amongst the palm trees

Pink bougainvillea hanging over the tropical shrubs

Bromeliads

Bougainvillea archway - spectacular entrance

Love this papyrus planting in terra cotta pots in front of a beautiful mosaic planter with Bromeliads

The Giant Dutchman's Pipe Vine Plant (Aristolochia gigantea) 

- can be up to 10 inches 

Topping the waterfall in the Brazilian garden is the only

 original Roberto Burle Marx ceramic mural in the United

 States.  He was knownknown internationally as the "father of

 modern landscape architecture."

I was so excited to see the most amazing display of sculptures amongst the plant displays - all from Zimbabwe - and a few sculptors were there busy doing their thing to watch

Water lily reflections

The exquisitely buttery yellow Golden Trumpet Tree (Tabebuia Chrysotricha) 

Another lovely soapstone sculpture from Zimbabwe

African Coral Tree ((Erythrina caffra) - spectacularly orange

 against the blue sky

Blue Plumbago in the Caribbean garden

                                  Cordia sebestana

Amazing mosaics in the Asian garden

The Candi Suka Ruin - inspired by a a Hindu temple in Javan,

 this ruin looks like it was plucked right from the jungles and

 placed here

Purple Trumpet Vine (Thunbergia Grandiflora)

More Golden Trumpet Tree

Pineapples - Ananas comosus

Beautiful Zimbabwean statue in front of the Burle Marx ceramic mosaic.

Walk beneath the purple clusters of flowers of the Queens

 Wreath (Petrea volubulis) vines climbing up and over the

 coral stone pillars of the pergola in the Caribbean garden

Caribbean garden

The gorgeous Petrea vine

Raised vegetable gardens

The Florida garden with palms and grasses

Bougainvillea beauty

Veges and herbs

Little cluster of terrestrial orchids

Water feature amongst the bromeliads

Such stunning statues from Zimbabwe

Woodpecker pecking away at the flower at the bottom of a bunch of bananas