Last Sunday Mr. H and I took Magpie and visited the Botanical Garden in Grapevine, Texas. I've been the Vice-Chair on the Beautification Commision for the city we live in for about 5 yrs and Mr. H is somewhat involved in the Botanical Garden in Grapevine. Here are some pictures I took with my new camera for you to enjoy.

This is a close up of an Iris and I couldn't find a blemish on it.  I have some of these in the flowerbed, out by the mailbox, but mine are solid purple and much darker than this one.  I love the way the background is blurred and the way the edges of the flower resemble feathers.  Looks like something you would find on an Angel's wings.

This is a Japanese "Coral Bark" Maple tree.  It is a good "understory" tree, here in Texas, which means it grow very well in the shade and will burn in full sun.  We have 5 large (50 yr old) Oak trees, 2 Pecans, a Sweet Gum and Silver Leaf Maple that surround our house so there is alot of shade.  I want one of these so bad I can taste it and am saving my pennies to get one.  I think the light green, lacy, leaves will make a nice contrast to the dark red brick of our house and the dark green leaves of the Oak trees.

I just love these Oakleaf Hydrangeas.  They are wonderful shade plants and Mr. H. bought me one for Mother's Day several years ago.  Mine doesn't look this nice and only has 2 blooms on it right now.  The leaves look like large oak tree leaves and the flowers are rather delicate and feathery.

This waterfall was flowing into two seperate ponds and was absolutely serene.  The top pond had a water spout shooting up out of the middle and the lower pond had water lillies and fish.  It makes mine look like crap and now I want to redo it.  Mr. H. just loves it when his "Honey Do" list gets a new or redo project penciled in.  With a couple of more "Tickle Fest" I think he might just jump on getting this project done.

We have waterlilly's in our pond, but the leaves aren't this large and our blooms are white.  I think that we are going to scrap it for one of these.  Our color scheme on the flowers that bloom in our garden are pink, purple or white and this would make a wonderful addition to our pond.  We also have Calla Lillies and Houttuynia in our pond.

Black-eyed Susan's!  Who wouldn't just love some Black-eyed Susan's growing in their garden, plus I think they are drought hardy,which is very important in a Texas landscape.  One of the things we push at the Beautification Commission is to plant Texas native plants because they are very beautiful and very hardy (think bluebonnets which are really classified as weeds).