I went for a visit to the Auckland Domain and into the gardens on Monday. It's a stunning place and it is FREE to get int to see the pants! The weather was just gorjuss sunshine and cloudless blue skies. The photo above is of some Pitcher plants growing from hanging baskets above the Lily pond. No Lilies at this time of year, but lot's of huge lily pads floating on the pond. The picture below is a close up of some water droplets on one of the lily pads.
I am not sure what this pink plant is called but it was very pretty.
A new addition to the gardens (which are enclosed) are a few wooden seats set back among the flowers. This one above is surround by "Love Lies" Bleeding". I don't know the Latin name for it!
All these following photo's are of various Dahlia's. Most of them were much taller than I was - (okay so I am well under five foot tall!) - so I had to point my camera up quite a lot to get a photo.
This white 'fluffy' Dahlia reminded me of those little floatie creatures that were in the movie "Avatar"!
I just loved this shaggy Dahlia, it reminded me of a mop!
The Dahlia's came in every size and colour and it was a smorgasbord of colour everywhere you looked! I spent a lot of time int his particular garden and met a lovely couple (He was a Kiwi, she was from Singapore) whom I chatted to for some time. They told me that in Singapore a garden like this would not be free, it would cost $25 entry fee!! I was shocked! Most of the gardens here are free to get into, although some do charge a small fee if they are private gardens.
More shaggy flowers! These were my favourites and I took a lot of photographs of them. Each one was just as stunning as the next.
Some of the Dahlia's were almost perfectly round and just looked like big pom-poms!
Here's a close-up of one of the pom-pom Dahlia's. Isn't Nature stunning?!
I also loved these stunning Sunshine yellow flowers. I felt like I needed sunglasses on they were so bright!
Each variety had several colours and shapes of flowers.
Love this big white pom-pom flower! It was VERY tempting to pick a big bunch of Dahlia's and bring them home!! They would sure look gorjuss sitting on my dining room table...
Some more beautiful shaggy flowers. I wonder how the bee's manage to find their way into the center of the flower?! Do they get lost in there?!
I love Dahlia flowers and could rave all day about them! I'm going to look online to see if I can buy any of the bulbs similar to any of these. I would LOVE to have a few in my garden!
The Sunshine yellow ones were on of my favourites; the colour was just, well, Sunshiney!
These too were stunning, and not quite so tall as some of the others, so a bit easier for me to photograph!
Don't you just love this (above) colour combination, red and purple! See, Nature knows her colour palette like us stampers do!!
This pale pink/peach flower was really stunning too. I had a fabulous day and just so enjoyed the awesome display of plants and flowers. Besides taking photo's (almost 200!), I sat and hand fed the Sparrows some popcorn I had taken especially for them! It was so relaxing and I came home feeling rejuvenated and chilled out! My senses were overloaded with what I had seen!
The gardens at the Domain change from month to month and there is always a spectacular display of flowers all year round...and it is FREE!! There's a couple of cafe's there as well. It's truly a great place to visit and I feel so blessed that it is available to me any time I like. There are also lakes with many different birds..and the odd water rat! And so much more!
Thanks for dropping by, I hope you left with a smile! Come back soon!
{HUGS} from me to YOU:-)
What a beautiful place to visit. I love dahlias. I remember that that was the flower that my grandfather gave me that grew in the garden at the house we all lived in when I was a child that I entered into a flower contest at school at the age of 6 and won a blue ribbon for.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful pics, you are a great photographer. i just planted some dahlia tubers last week. No fluffy ones though! xx
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