Right now, the boys are ate up with Disc Golf, and while I love doing things with them, after looking at this course, I decided that it was a bit more than my novice level, so Ray and I decided to go to the Birmingham Botanical Gardens.
Operated by the City of Birmingham, this beautiful park was dedicated in 1934, but not developed as a botanical garden until 1960, with the conservatory being built in 1962. It has nearly 70 acres of garden space, and features hundreds of thousands of beautiful plants, trees, flowers, shrubs and cacti.
The day started out a little chilly, but after walking around the azalea garden, we quickly warmed up. I love visiting botanical gardens in regions different than where we live because different things grow there. At the BBG, I saw two plants of note that I had never seen before and loved!
First up was hellebore. These mostly green plants have the most unique flowers that start green, but as they open they develop shades of pink to purple. So unique and delicate, they were everywhere. They are in the Ranunculus family and can grow from zones 3-9, and are some of the earliest to bloom in the springtime. Known in the most southern zones to even bloom around Christmas! I’ll be looking for some plants to incorporate into my landscapes.
Second was a yellow azalea. I have not seen an azalea that was any shade other than white or pink/red/purple. I saw it from 100 yards away, it was that bright. I looked at it and told Ray, “I have to go see what that its…. It looks like a yellow azalea but I’ve never seen one before, even at the Az festival in Honor Heights in Muskogee.
The garden tour wrapped with a walk through the canebrake to the Japanese garden, which was a sister city project with Ritto, Shiga, Japan, in 1976.
When we picked the boys back up, Blake was determined to go to Ruffner mountain for what he TOLD me was a short, easy 0.4 mile hike to a rocky outcropping overlooking the whole city of Birmingham. He wanted to be there at sunset. So we acquiesced and headed to Ruffner. Though once we got there and looked at the posted trail map, I began to doubt my Boy Scout’s planning skills. The “easy” hike that was supposed to be 0.4 was more like 3.5 and straight up a ridge. Steep. And did I mention it was only an hour until dark? He was determined to do it, so I let him- and chose to go back to the nature center, and the car. The park closes at 7, so we admonished them not to tarry and go get the shot they wanted and get back. At exactly 6:59:59 the gate swung close. Very soon after the sun had set and it was getting DARK. We have a phone tracker on all our family phones, and it reported that Blake’s phone was nearly dead and Connor only had 10% battery left. As parents, we were sweating it. I could watch their track down the mountain on the app, and was getting more than a little peeved that I let them be so ill prepared. Neither had water, flashlights or even a trail map. When it was almost pitch black, I could start to hear them crashing through the trees and underbrush. When they got to the car, Blake was laughing and Connor was less than thrilled. Once they were seated in the car and had a few drinks of water, I asked them to tell me what the Boy Scout Motto was… “Be Prepared!” I asked them if in hindsight, they felt like they were properly prepared. They agreed they were not and Con issued the edict that Blake could no longer choose family activities for this trip! He had scraped his arm pretty good and was hot and sweaty. We elected for Con’s choice of BBQ for dinner an
