Fairchild's Tropical Gadens/ Dale Chihuly Exhibit

Fairchild Tropical Gardens… Dale Chihuly exhibit


“I want my work to look like it just happened, as if it were made by nature.”-Dale Chihuly http://www.chihuly.com/

Fairchild Tropical Gardens is the most magical place in the city. Quiet, lush, tropical and magnificent garden… http://www.fairchildgarden.org/

I had to hug the Rainbow Eucalyptus tree. Actually, through the whole tour I kept thinking about this tree – I never knew such a thing existed. This one comes from Malaysia I think and my semi crappy camera did it no justice – the thing is friggin huge!
http://www.tradewindsfruit.com/rainbow_eucalyptus.htm

(these pictures are from the garden... I took them...)And as the bark peels the colors change – I swear it looked like a Willy Wonka garden sans candy. I like saying ‘sans’ these days.

I sat for a while beside Chihuly’s orbs – with purple and white flowers blooming on lily pads strong enough to hold a small child.

The tour guide really knew his stuff. I would imagine that it helps having to say the same spiel a bunch of times in the day, but you could also tell how much he loved his work. I loves seeing that. He drove around so many times with different groups, I was at the garden for like five hours… I want to live there. If possible, I’d like to split my time between the book store and this garden.

There were families, senior citizen groups – and golf carts everywhere with helpful museum workers who would drive you around if you asked them. I ate a delicious Mediterranean sandwich next to the rainbow tree – it had artichokes and olives, and cheese, yum!

And the butterflies!!!

I saw three kinds out this day, monarch, queen and zebra. It was windy so they really weren’t that many but I shot as many pictures as I could. I LOVE BUTTERFLY GARDENS! Marian, my friend who works at Fairchild’s and is like a plant doctor or something like that, has zebra butterflies at her house and a really really awesome garden. My favorite is the zebra butterfly.

Among Chihuly’s stuff was also art by other artists…

And there was one exhibit with plants in a crib and strollers… endangered species.

Maybe I'll post the rest of the pictures another time, I took over 100 pictures that day. Everything was just soooooooooo beautiful to me. Um... well, I guess there are some other things to say. So in the next blog I'll say them.