North Carolina Arboretum

On the way home from our Spring Break trip we took a slight detour through Asheville to meet my uncle for lunch.  We got there a bit early so we could take a tour of the NC Arboretum, which is right by my uncle's workplace.

 It was neat going through the greenhouses and seeing all of the different plants and flowers. 

 I'm not so good with plants or flowers, so other than saying that we saw tons and tons of bonsai, I can't give you specific names of things.

But I suspect I have quite a few plant-savvy readers who would know the names of every plant on here, including this cool swirly leafed thing:

I thought this bonsai looked like people wrapped up in an embrace.  What do you see?

You wouldn't think this would be very interesting for kids, but actually the boys really seemed to enjoy it.

They liked this wooly looking plant especially.

And the boys always enjoy seeing flowers.

We also toured an art exhibit in one of the buildings.  

And saw many more bonsai.

I never knew there were so many different types.

When we first entered the park, we were told we should make a trip to the ecolab. So we finally tracked it down and went down to see a few snakes and turtles.  And then Cort and Reid said, "But Mom, where are the EAGLES?"  Apparently they misheard and thought it was an eagle lab.  Must've been a bit of a disappointment for them....

I loved this little "green" shed - see the lady on top - there were so many herbs growing on the roof!

This is about how I felt visiting this beautiful place:

The boys had fun jumping in a drained fountain.

Lastly, we walked through a very zen bonsai garden area.

What a wonderful place.  We definitely need to return when we have longer than 90 minutes to spend!