After some effort, I've finally gotten the photos off my old camera (only because my newer and better one has gone missing - ack!) and I can write about the Saturday my mom visited.
The weather was absolutely fantastic, and we took full advantage of it. In the morning we drove to
River Farm in Alexandria, Virginia. This lovely property on the Potomac River has a long history, but most interestingly was once owned by George Washington and his descendants. Now it is home to the headquarters of the American Horticultural Society, and fittingly has lovely gardens and flowers. We were there in an attempt to find cherry blossoms without needing to shlep into downtown DC along with a trillion tourists. Unfortunately these cherry trees were not yet blooming, however we did enjoy strolling around the grounds.
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| Yayyy, lots of happy spring daffodils! |
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| A view in the meadow |
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| Yep, the sky was gloriously blue and made everything look great. |
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| Awesome birdhouse apartment complex |
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| I adore hyacinths! |
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| I'd never seen these type of flowers, but found them very pretty. |
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| More daffodils! |
Mom and I then headed to the Del Ray neighborhood of Alexandria, sipped some iced tea in a cafe, stopped in my favorite gluten-free bakery,
The Happy Tart, and browsed in a local artisans' store that was unfortunately about to permanently close its doors. Among other items, I spotted
Latvian-American photographer's Inga Vitols' cards. Then we decided it was time for lunch, and we drove to nearby
Rustico Restaurant for some gluten-free pizza. Mom also enjoyed tastes of a couple of local beers. By then we needed a break, so we went home for an afternoon rest.
Later in the evening we decided to check out what was in bloom at
Brookside Gardens, which is the Montgomery County park system's botanical garden. I've been there a number of times, but never in early spring. We loved the huge number of daffodils hiding in the woods, as well as the several cherry trees gracing pond next to the Japanese tea house. Due to current construction, we were unable to walk around the entire pond, but we truly enjoyed ambling through this wonderful park and garden.
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| Trifecta! Two cherry trees and daffodils! |
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| Pink weeping cherry tree, Brookside Gardens. |
Could the flowers before the daffodils be lenten rose? My neighbor gave me some last fall and so far they've proved to be an excellent (spreading) groundcover with early (and pretty) spring blooms. Hope you find your camera!
ReplyDeleteCould be! There were also very dark purplish ones - those didn't photograph well, though. Thanks - I'm also hoping I find my camera, but luckily everyone nowadays has smart phones and my European travel buddy for next month has a much nicer camera than I do! Unfortunately, the last time I remember having it was on one of our big snow days this winter, when I went out to photograph some snowy scenes - am a bit afraid it may have fallen out of my pocket and into a snowdrift!
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