Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park

Vanessa and I was off on another mini-adventure this last weekend. Vanessa came up to Michigan for our annual August "Girl's Weekend" and it happened to land on the same weekend as my birthday - how lucking was that. In the past we have visited Saugatuck, Holland, and Frankenmuth (all in Michigan) where we've enjoyed days of shopping, dinning and site seeing.

This year I could see that the weather was not going to be very cooperative (they were calling for it to very cool and rainy) and so we decided to stay close to my home. We enjoyed the Rivertown Mall, dinner and a movie on Friday. Then on Saturday we visited the Frederik Meijer Gardens. The gardens are made up of 132 acres of wetland, woodlands, meadows and garden designs. There are a few small greenhouses and one large tropical conservatory under roof, and then several large outside garden areas to roam around.

One of the great advantages of having such a large garden practically at my back door, is that I can draw from ideas and plants that I see are working well for them. I also can solis in the fact that some of the problems that I am struggling with, I see they too have not had a good year with - we have had so much rain this year (not that I am complaining) and it's been a little cooler than normal (again, Lord - not that I am complaining at all - I have enjoyed the cooler weather!) - it is hard on some of the plants.

As you might have guessed by the huge amount of pictures we took in Italy, we like to use and experiment with our cameras....lol. So, you can be assured we took many lovely pictures of all the flowers and sculptures we came across in the park. Here is just a sampling of my pictures...enjoy!

And the next time you are in Grand Rapids, Michigan, please plan to stop by the Gardens - I promise you, it is amazing!