Happy Friday, GPODers!
I’ve been talking a lot about gardens slowing down this week. It’s hard for me to not acknowledge this as I look out on bare trees and dead annuals that desperately need to be pulled from their pots, but I know plants are still very active in southern gardens. Patricia Cranston sent me a fabulous reminder when she shared these photos from a recent trip to Atlanta Botanical Garden. The intense heat of summer has subsided, and there are still plenty of colorful flowers and foliage to enjoy throughout their many different gardens.
I spent a lovely sunny day at the Atlanta Botanical Garden last week and took some photos that I hope my fellow GPOD readers will enjoy. The garden has extensive open and woodland gardens, a vegetable garden, a children’s garden, bog gardens, a tropical greenhouse, a desert house, and two orchid houses. You can easily spend an entire day there.
Mosaiculture dog made of grasses (no, they aren’t dead!)
Most of us have our eyes on plants when visiting botanical gardens, but these biodiverse destinations are almost always home to a variety of small wildlife. Keep a lookout for critters, and you might be surprised by what you find, like this frog thoroughly enjoying the bog garden.
This lovely mass planting of white pitcher plants (Sarracenia leucophylla, Zones 6–8) is an example of yet another reason to visit your local botanical garden. This plant is native to Georgia, coastal Florida, Mississippi, and Alabama, and is endangered in some areas because of loss of habitat. Hopefully this prominent planting encourages more people to learn about this fascinating plant.
Along with an impressive collection of plants, Atlanta Botanical Garden is home to some world-renowned art. In this photo Patricia captured are the dazzling Enchanted Trees by Poetic Kinetics. This is a traveling art installation that consists of 11 incredible artwork trees that can be found across the garden. Patricia was lucky to catch this display, as the trees will be moving on to their next location after they leave the gardens on January 11, 2026.
Endangered natives are extremely important, but I know many people flock to public gardens specifically to see the exotics. Greenhouses and conservatories are always treasure troves of tropical plants at scales seen nowhere else outside of the wild. For example, this wild red banana (Musa haekkinenii, Zones 11–12) can turn your idea of bananas on its head. Rather than producing large, sweet fruit, it produces these wonderful inflorescences, which small, heavily seeded fruit grows from.
Scarlet star (Guzmania lingulata, Zones 10–12) is a bromeliad, and another bold red tropical. This is a great photo to demonstrate that the red “petals” are actually bracts, often mistaken as flowers. The true flowers of this plant are small and white, and emerge from between those bracts.
Of course, we can’t talk tropicals without seeing at least a couple of orchids. These Schlim’s slipper orchids (Phragmipedium schlimii, Zones 10–12) create pretty clusters of foliage around their delicate blooms.
Lastly, a hybrid Miltoniopsis orchid (Miltoniopsis Lillian Nakamoto, Zones 10–12), which, with the black-bat-shaped marking in the middle, would have fit into our Halloween posts last week. It’s paired with a matching white moth orchid (Phalaenopsis spp. and cvs., Zones 10–12) alongside.
Thank you so much for sharing some highlights from this wonderful public garden with us, Patricia! From amazing art to the most interesting plants, you captured some of the best parts of botanical gardens—the elements we likely aren’t able to replicate in our home landscapes.
Did you visit any public gardens this year? As much as we love to feature private gardens, we also enjoy seeing public gardens through the eyes of our GPOD community. Follow the directions below to submit photos via email, or send me a DM on Instagram: @agirlherdogandtheroad.
We want to see YOUR garden!
Have photos to share? We’d love to see your garden, a particular collection of plants you love, or a wonderful garden you had the chance to visit!
To submit, send 5–10 photos to [email protected] along with some information about the plants in the pictures and where you took the photos. We’d love to hear where you are located, how long you’ve been gardening, successes you are proud of, failures you learned from, hopes for the future, favorite plants, or funny stories from your garden.
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