For garden lovers -- Drew's away I play .. in gardens

My long, lost friend, Kitty Verbeck from 50 years ago in high school, Albany Academy for Girls (oldest all female high school in the country) and I met at Bok Tower Gardens,  the sixth highest point in Florida on the Lake Wales Ridge.  A hill with a view inspired industrialist ,Mr. Bok, to build a botanical garden and carillon with sundial here.  In Florida a distant view is rarely to be had.  We had a leisurely walk and lunch at the cafe to catch up on all the years.  So good to see her.
  The Bok gardens were organized by areas: courtyard pool, pollinator, children's, kitchen, eco types, azalea, and carillon area.

 All the Bok pictures are followed by the next day's outing to Morikami Japanese Gardens, (another blog post) the ones that Melania Trump took the Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe's wife, Aki Abe to when they visited the US.

Mostly pictures here  The inspiring top of the ridge.

the entrance courtyard with a store, museum and cafe.

The children's garden was large and imaginative.

Climbing stones
Jets of mist through the rock.

 giant stone acorns

 A word garden

music in the garden with xylophones

 

Bok Tower that houses the carillon

 The vertical sundial with an explanation of how it works. Signs of the zodiac are around the outside border. The Roman Numerals are hard to see, but the shadow is moving counter clockwise.  XII is at the bottom.  It was just before 12.

At the bottom of the tower a beautiful pond with catfish

Then the carillon plays

The alligator

 cactus and succulent exhibit

 A perfect camelia

Then there was a pavilion where we just looked out a window at a framed impressionistic view of a pond.  I just sat there stock still and birds and animals began to come.

Names of flowers display in the gardens.






























Statue in a small pool.  Water is always so effective.

A great garden always has paths that wander off into the next garden or pond or beach
that you cannot see.  Each garden area should be a surprise producing wonder.  What's through the next door, down the next path, around the next curve.  Spanish moss dripping down