New Orleans Botanical Gardens

The horticulture and floral design show I recently competed in was located in the beautiful Pavilion of Two Sisters at the New Orleans Botanical Gardens at City Park. The marvel of this garden is the fact that it is still here and is still very beautiful after the flooding of Hurricane Katrina.

It turned into a test garden of sorts after Hurricane Katrina. Local Ag officials and horticulturalists took a tally of how each plant fared in the standing waters of the flood. Quite a bit died, but much of it took a beating and survived. Our garden club and many other garden clubs across the U.S. contributed with other donors to get it functioning in time for the yearly "Celebration in the Oaks" at Christmas time.

Here is the main path leading to the conservatory. Notice the large palms. Most palms survived. Not surprising!
Here is a sculpture by Enrique Alferez. All of the roses in the garden died. As well as numerous shrubs and plants.

But most of all, I'm so happy the old live oaks survived! It is estimated that one of City Parks oaks is 600 years old. They are truly gorgeous to behold. There's nothing better I liked to do in college, when things got overwhelming, than lie underneath the spread of an old live oak tree and soak in the shafts of sunlight that filtered through. I have taken many naps this way.

Pictures never do these trees the justice they deserve.

A pretty path of tropicals in the garden.

Just a few pics of the show. Here is one of the plants that won overall awards. None of mine won one of these (boo hoo). But......I did win....

Eight blues and two yellows! Not too bad for an organic gardener huh? No chemicals and no chemical fertilizers. Here is an example of how they judged. This is my variegated ginger that won. Each specimen is inspected for perfection. If it scores a 95 or above it receives a blue ribbon. My entries that won first: bok choy, lima beans, varigated ginger, lemon thyme, thyme, oregano, lavender, parsley. My floral design and my rosemary won third.