Botanic Gardens - this one's for you Dr. B!

Hey everyone,

Dr. B was my Environmental Biology professor during the Fall 2008 semester at Wartburg. Her class pretty much changed my life and so this blog is for her. This post is also for my mom since she loves plants so much and is an avid gardener.

On Sunday, the 2nd of March, I woke up and laid in bed and read a book called Going Postal. It's an insane book, but I can't seem to put it down. Jeremy is lending it to me since the author is Australian. After reading, I got up and went down and had some breakfast up on the balcony that overlooks the tennis courts behind Helene's house. Everyone else was gone for church so I showered and then went and watched some more tennis since it was little kids playing and I found it amusing. I also read some more of that book because I wanted to know what happened next.

After the Schulz's came home from church we had lunch. It is here that I learned about double-cut rolls. You make TWO cuts in your bread roll and then you fill up BOTH cuts so that you have more in your sandwich. It's essentially two sandwiches in one! I took a big sesame seed loaf before I realized I had to cut it twice (or three times if you're feelin' really hungry - then you'll have 3 sandwiches!) and fill it up. I had a two-cheese and some kind of meat double-cut roll. I was so proud of myself by the end of the meal - I ate almost the entire sandwich! When I say heaping loaf of sesame see, I mean heaping!

We then headed off to the Botanic Gardens in Adelaide. We wandered through the rose garden, into the rainforest conservatory, through a woodlands path, the amazon water lily pavilion and then two glass houses. Here are some of my photos from the excursion. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

The South Australian state flower: Sturt's Desert Pea

One of the walkways in the Rose Garden

A yellow rose

Another walkway in the Rose Garden

This section of the rose garden is where they are mixing rose genes and making new roses! This sign explained it all.

This was experiment #66.

They are green manure crops! I saw this and thought of Dr. B's class.

Experiment #45

The Rainforest Conservatory

A view of the rainforest! It actually felt like a rainforest inside of the conservatory.

Some bird (I don't think it flies) underneath the leaves on the ground

These are called Red Hot Cat Tails - quite different from the brown ones back in Iowa.

One of the information walls in the building

The other information wall

This is a picture of the lake in the rainforest - I took the photo in sepia. Those who know me well know that I love sepia and black and white photos.

Here is a branch that has grown over the walkway...

This tree produces some kind of fruit and it was pruned to grow right next to the wall.

The lilies in the Amazon Water Pavilion

This sign amused me so much I was laughing out loud. I thought you'd enjoy it as much as I did.

After the excursion at the Botanic Gardens I went back to Helene's house and crashed for a bit before getting up and around for Ellie's Holden Evening Prayer service. It was a good and very short service that involved a lot of singing and communion. Ellie sang and led part of the worship. I took the video footage of her on her camera while she was singing. After the service I went back to Helene's and crashed. My body was in a lot of pain from the three and a half hour walk through the Gardens.

Cheers.