The garden takes up a funny little piece of land just at the bottom of Capitol Hill, and consists of a series of outdoor garden spaces and a large, multi-room greenhouse and exhibit space. One of the greenhouse areas holds orchids, another cacti, and a third has a child's garden whose roof is open to the sky.
There's a bamboo tunnel for running:
And an enormo-Sunflower sculpture:
And a little thatched cottage for playing Little House in the Garden, or Little House in DC, or whatever pioneer fantasy floats your wee boat:
And another tunnel, in case running under plants is really, really your thing:
Other parts of the greenhouse boast some beautiful specimens. This one lives outside and in, and is a double-petaled datura. I love the color, the shape, everything about it except the fact that datura is poisonous. It can also be useful, medicinally, but mostly it's poisonous.
On either side of the glass structure are exhibit spaces. One is a boring educational room (whatevs), while the other is an art gallery at the moment. They're showing sculptures titled "Flora: Growing Inspirations." The sculpture below is big enough to walk into (though you can't), and made of layers of wood.
This one is made of wire, and I guess it's intended to evoke an allium or maybe a seed pod. I dunno, but I like it.
Up close and personal. Perhaps it's an ode to bedsprings?
This one's witty: blue sage shoes. Nyuk, nyuk. I think you have to admire someone who makes sculpture playing off of a botanical, musical and culinary theme, though. And they're shoes!
I thought this lily was lovely and unique, until I saw it growing in Miriam's neighbor's yard. Doh.
The nice thing about working on the Hill this summer has been that if the fancy takes me (and mostly it hasn't, since I work all day in the library and then travel back in the fascinating social experiment known as The 36 Bus) I can spend 20 minutes in a museum for the price of a 3-block walk. That's nice.
1 comment:
you forgot to mention that datura is also psychedelic.
and the poison paralyzes the vagus nerve (sp?) that controls breathing. so if you eat it, you can die slowly of suffocation while tripping.
in Haiti, it forms part of the zombi making powder (along with some psychedelic frogs and poisonous sea snakes). and sometimes thieves burn it under the windows of the houses they want to rob because the smoke, less poisonous, is narcotic and puts you into a very deep sleep.
probably more info than you want to know, but there you have it.
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