Emily Dickinson's Garden

Anne and I took a day off and went to The New York Botanical Gardens to see the Emily Dickinson's garden exhibit. It was fabulous-the videos on the web site show how the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory was transformed into this wonderful replica (albeit in minature) of what Dickinson's garden might have looked like.
I especially liked the way her poetry was connected to the flowers and plant life-look at this one.
I also loved the flowers: foxglove, snapdragon, marigolds, peas-look at these: the picture doesn't really do them justice. These are called "Schizanthus", poor-man's-orchid-this particular type is called Angel Wing's Mix-how's that for a name? According to Wikipedia, this plant is in the nightshade family. The foxglove were absolutely stunning-look at the photos below. And in addition to the poetry there were little "factoids" about the plants-things like when they were introduced to America, and what the plants meant in Victorian times. Foxglove was associated with insincerity.
Its name comes from the idea that it looks like a glove, and in Wales it was believed that fairies, or "folks," lurked in the flower, giving it the name "folk's glove." I love the idea of fairies "lurking" in the flower. The foxglove at this exhibit made me want to grow them in our garden. We tried (once) and they died, but we'll try again.
And then there were hydrangea-here's Anne taking a shot of the beautiful lace leaf hydrangea.
And a final shot of a butterfly on the big globe allium-we have these in our garden, too, only without the butterfly! We're going back this Friday and I can't wait!