Imaginary Worlds -- "Plants Larger Than Life"

This past week, Crossroads Garden Club Members (including me) took a field trip to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. For eight years, I had a membership to the gardens (as I worked downtown for ten years) but I had not visited for five years since I retired. The improvements and additions were a wonderful surprise, but the Imaginary World Exhibition was fantastic!

Regardless, if you like plants, art or things bigger than life, you'll probably love my blog tour today of the Imaginary Worlds Exhibition.

Above, as you enter the gardens from the new visitor center, two cobras greet you on each side of the walkway. Due to the large amount of rain, as well as, maintenance, we found employees working on both cobras. They were trimming and replacing plants as needed.

An ogre, protects the Day Hall, feet from the cobras. He has a small tunnel at the back of his head, perfect for children to walk through.

Over one hundred thousand plants are used to make 19 living sculptures in this exhibit. It is the first to be displayed in any garden in the United States.

Two butterflies are a few examples of mosaiculture art that is centuries old and a creative collaboration between the Atlanta Botanical Garden and the International Mosaiciculture of Montreal, a non-profit organization.

Close to the Cascade Garden is a unicorn grazing in a pasture. Growing up we had horses grazing in pastures but none had horns.

Since I'm a dog person, the shaggy dog was one of my favorite exhibits. The hair is made from grass.

Sweet potato vines are used for the earth goddesses' s hair. She is the only mosaiculture sculpture kept as a permanent fixture at the gardens.

Rabbits munch on plants close to the walkway at the great lawn.

In the edible garden berries smile on peppers, tomatoes, squash, apples growing on one side and a large herb wall growing on the other.

Dancing fish rotate in a fountain as you exit the Fuqua Conservatory and walk the vine arbor toward the Japanese and rose gardens.

Another cobra stands to the right as you exit the gardens to the visitor center and parking garage.

These topiaries are larger than life and the Atlanta Botanical Gardens gives you a view into a world you can only imagine!

Pencil thin steel is welded into different animal, human and plant shapes. Afterwards, the forms are filled with growing medium and covered with a type of shade cloth. Grasses, succulents, plugs of annual, perennial blooming and green foliage takes several months to take form. Daily maintenance is needed to keep the artistic lines of the sculptures at their best.


Until Next Time.......

Happy Gardening 2013!


Posted by Wilma Smith