Sunday Morning Stroll - Bellevue Botanical Garden

After working most of the week in our own garden, I needed a change of venue.  I wanted a place where I could combine walking with beautiful surroundings, not too far from home.  

We found just the place.

 The Bellevue Botanical Garden is undergoing some construction - a new visitor's center- so the temporary entrance is now through the Yao Garden.

It was another beautiful day, and the new green Japanese maple leaves made a glowing canopy overhead.

Leaving the precisely planted Yao Garden, we took the wilder trail through the wooded seventeen acres of preserve.

 Emerging from the wood, we came to the newly reworked Perennial Borders.  These are maintained by the Northwest Perennial Alliance, of which Tom and I are members.  We can't claim any credit here, since our own garden takes up all of our time and energy, but our purchases at the NPA plant sales have certainly contributed to the fund raising.

 A stroll though Rhododendron Glen took us back to our starting point.

We walked a bit more through the woods on the adjacent Wilburton Trail outside the garden before returning to our car.

We spent two lovely hours surrounded by beauty and bird song, covered three miles, took lots of photos, felt restored, and were back home by noon.