botanic gardens

Botanic bouquets

/ Tracy Abell / 10 Comments

Today I joined a new friend from Barnraisers and his family for a visit to the Botanic Gardens in Denver. They live out of state and while we’d only met via zoom, he and I  connected through the screen. Happily, his spouse and son were equally fun to talk with. I purposely left my camera at home so as not to be rude about interrupting conversations to take photos, but these beauties were too hard to resist and I used my camera phone to capture their essence.

Here’s another clump highlighting the stems which resemble fluffy evening gowns:

Hooray for the beauty of Pasque Flowers!

Visiting Denver Botanic Gardens

/ Tracy Abell / 2 Comments

Today I met a friend at the Denver Botanic Gardens. She has a membership and treated me (for the umpteenth time) to a guest pass. Here’s one of the dazzling flower and plant displays at the entrance:

There were many plants I recognized and many more I did not. For instance, what is this?

In my photo file I labeled it “Poky Plant,” but I’m nearly 100% sure that’s not the right name.

Then there’s the Dragon Arum otherwise known as Dracunculus vulgaris. When I showed this photo to Zebu he said the exact same thing my friend had remarked: “Dracunculus vulgaris is a Harry Potter spell.”

It was a lovely couple hours at the gardens and now I’m back home in front of my computer, getting psyched up to tackle my revisions. 

May my thoughts stay still longer than the water spiders in that last photo.

Koi: further proof that orange can be beautiful**

/ Tracy Abell

Writer-friend Sarah and I went to the Botanic Gardens on Sunday. She has a membership plus a special key fob that allowed us in the side gate to the gardens. We walked and talked through the gardens, pausing on the little deck to gaze at the colorful koi. Bonus: the dark one in the lower left of the photo has delightful whiskers, and I highly recommend clicking on the photo to enlarge.

We didn’t feed them (nor have I witnessed anyone feeding them during any of my visits), but that didn’t stop the koi from gathering below the deck and puckering their lips in anticipation.

** My ongoing project to reclaim the color orange, helping me remember that it can be a thing of beauty and not just a hideous spray tan in the White House.

 

Empathizing With the NOs

/ Tracy Abell

Today I had to send an email to a man who’d put time, energy, and creativity
into his proposal to landscape our back yard.
I had to tell him “Thanks, but no thanks.”

I spent quite a while composing those several email sentences,
wanting to be kind and to somehow minimize the “blow.”

In doing so I felt a certain empathy with agents and editors;
it must be really difficult to send out so many NOs.

Botanic Gardens 002
© Tracy Abell 2012