This gallery contains 22 photos.
My latest “holy grail” has me looking for French mulberry shrubs, also known as beauty berry, specifically the Callicarpa americana …
New Orleans City Park Annual Spring Garden Show
15 Sunday Apr 2012
Category Archives: Gardening
Butterflies and Bayous
23 Sunday Oct 2011
Posted in Bloggers, Gardening, Gulf Coast, History, New Orleans Women, NOLA Bloggers, Northshore, Photography, The Northshore, Wetlands
This gallery contains 1 photo.
We were pleasantly surprised today when we finally decided on what to do on Saturday… we went to Camp Salmen …
You CAN “do” outside in August in Louisiana!
14 Sunday Aug 2011
Tags
Bayou Lacombe, free things to do, Redemptorist Religious Seminary Lacombe, Southeast Louisiana wildlife refuges, Wildlife Refuge Headquarters
For the first time in over a month hubby and I had a Saturday where we could do some hiking and picture taking. It was a wonderful release.
A place that’s been on our”gotta visit” list is the Southeast Louisiana National Wildlife Refuge Headquarters in Lacombe, just 15 minutes from our house.
Upon entering the site, you’re drawn to the landscaping. The attention to detail is apparent and it reaches back over 200 years.
This site is rich in history and beauty. The August heat appeared to be too much to handle, but it really wasn’t at this site because of the abundance of trees. We arrived at 10 AM and were done by noon.
Here is a brief rundown of the history of this paradise in Lacombe, taken from one of the info boards:
Likely a portion of French or Spanish Land Grant during the Colonial Era, the earliest known owner was Louis Reggio prior to 1820. The property changed hands a number of times later that century, with the Cousin and Ducre names common today in the Lacombe area among the owners during this period into the 20th century.
The land was acquired in 1935 by Judge Wayne Borah (the youngest Federal Judge in the country at the time), who built a residence.
This structure is a Chimney Swift Tower
He and his family did extensive landscaping, laying out the foundation which is known today as the “Bayou Gardens” of Lacombe.
In 1946 the home and gardens were acquired by former (crooked) Louisiana Governor Richard Leche, who settled into the lush surroundings with his family and continued the cultivation of the Bayou Gardens.
In 1956 the land was acquired by the Redemptorist religious order and in 1960 the Holy Redeemer Seminary opened. The seminary closed in 1980, but members of the order continued to live at the site, holding religious retreats. And apparently, a cemetery was established for the priests that stayed until the end of their lives.
The rear of the residence gives way to a great lawn that faces Bayou Lacombe
This site is loaded with walking trails, as shown in the map below
There are walking trails off to each side of the great lawn that are easy to maneuver and full of small surprises if you look for them
A trail that begins at the parking lot of the Refuge leads down to a grotto
which leads to a rudimentary brick staircase:
Made with local bricks
This same trail will also bring you to a lovely little area to sit and ponder the beauty of Bayou Lacombe
If you walk it a little while longer, it brings you to another pensive sight overlooking a pond.
The visitor center is huge and loaded with information and displays.
This little girl was killed by a car in Bayou Teche and her remains were saved and brought to the headquarters
The Headquarters represents the eight of Southeast Louisiana (SELA) Refuges:
Atchafalaya (prounounced A-Cha-FaH-lie-ya)
Bayou Sauvage (through which I traverse on my daily commute)
Bayou Teche (prounounced Tesh)
Big Branch Marsh (in our backyard)
Bogue Chitto (prounounced Boog gah Chitta)
Breton – close to my heart because it’s a bird refuge
Delta National Wildlife Refuge
Mandalay – only accessible by boat, near Houma, Louisiana.
A visit to the Bayou Lacombe Center is a win-win situation any time of the year. Besides all of the hiking trails, the kids would love the Visitors Center for the displays (lots of interactive stuff there too). The best part is that admission is FREE!! You can get to the Bayou Lacombe Center by taking exit 74 on I-12. Staffed by volunteers, the visitor center is open Thursdays-Saturdays from 9:00am to 4:00pm. Volunteers are needed to help run the visitor center. Please contact the volunteer coordinator at 985-882-2024.
A Piece of Saturday
07 Saturday May 2011
Posted in Gardening, Louisiana, New Orleans Women, Northshore, Photography
warning: this is a post about an extremely small community on the Northshore of Lake Pontchartrain. It may be considered boring. LOL!!!
We have our Saturday traditions: breakfast at Sunrise on Second Street (one of the few places in Slidell that make a decent breakfast), then the local farmers’ market for good, fresh, inexpensive produce . After that it’s up in the air.
Today was the day before Mothers’ Day and we were scheduled to have a brunch with Hubby’s Mother and sister in Metairie around noon. We had a couple of hours to kill and decided to wander on to the site where – just a few weeks ago – an Amtrak train derailed due to either misjudgement or pure stupidity.
Backstory: A driver hauling a flatbed carrying some tanks from the Textron facilty in Slidell misjudged the speed of an Amtrak train that runs this route every day and straddled his truck across the tracks while waiting for a red light to turn green. 
The results are shown below.
This is the engine that was the lead engine on that day. It was covered at the behest of Amtrak officials.
The impact of the accident caused the metal on this car to curl back.
I took this photo to show the proximity of the second engine to the very busy Front Street in Slidell.
I wonder what was going through the minds of the people driving to work on that day as they looked over and saw Amtrak heading for them.
We discovered that we woke up the security forces at Textron and decided to move on.
I remembered it as being “National Train Day” in Slidell. Train Day was created to bring attention to the romance of travelling by rail. There was a tiny “to do” at the Slidell train station that we went to look into. A pretty nondescript place, we got our goodie bag and then proceeded on to walking a few miles around the park to work off breakfast.
Our next stop was a small park situated on Bayou Bonfouca and the local Amtrak station.
Our exercise proved to be very interesting. Slidell mornings begin slowly and work their way into slow afternoons, which I like.
Carved by Slidell artist Phil Galatas this very cool frog was once a stump post Katrina
This bird makes sure that you keep out of the flower beds.
Another bird on the job
On Patrol
Magnolias are just beginning to bloom and I was frustrated that I didn’t have a ladder with me to capture the beauty of their flowers.
Thanks for sharing a few hours of Saturday. Any suggestions, comments are always welcome. Hit the “comments” button, y’all!!! Let us know how we’re doing!
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I just can’t stay inside!!!
09 Saturday Apr 2011
By now I’ve pretty much established myself as a picture manic poster on this website. I revel in sights that delight my eye.
After spending Friday at French Quarter Festival (a great time), we decided to check out City Park’s Botanical Gardens. After this visit I will refer to it as the Garden of Eden. What a beautiful place it is. (note to self: go to thesaurus dot com to find a more appropriate word for beautiful).
Between the two of us, hubby and I took over 1,000 pictures. No kidding. I’ve only checked out what I took as of this posting. I have whittled down my 500 plus pix to 50, but don’t worry – I will not post them all here. Just what I think are the best.
So without much further ado I present you the beauty of the Botanical Gardens at City Park
If you ever visit the Botanical Gardens, there is a fantastic, secret garden for train lovers. It’s the Train Garden and I plan to publish my pictures from this wonderfully imaginative garden soon. If you’re ever bored on the internet – as my 22 year old daughter is wont to do – check out the rest of my Botanical Garden pix at my photobucket site
A Crown Jewel in New Orleans
13 Sunday Mar 2011
Posted in Architecture, Art, Artists, Culture, Gardening, Louisiana, New Orleans Women, Photography, The NoLA Life
It has been close to ten years since I ventured to City Park in New Orleans. Since then the park has recovered from Katrina and is looking as beautiful as she can. Hubby and I had business to do in “Kennah” and chose City Park to kill some time; we were happily surprised in the beauty that the park offers. If you’re interested, this site Offers the history of the Park. I never knew it was once the site of a plantation.
Here are the pictures, in no particular order.
Click on pictures for larger versions.
the sundial
Called the “Colombier de Carol”, this building is also called City Park Pigeonierre, or a dovecote.
This is the plaque for the Colombier . Designed and dedicated by former City Park President and New Orleans barrister Felix Dreyfous.
Speaking of signs and plaques, City Park has so many plaques throughout its 1,300 acres and you can find them and their history at this website.
There are so many bridges crossing the Lagoon at the Park. I fell in love with each and every one of them, as none of them are the same.
One of the lions outside the Peristyle
I spotted this beauty at a ticket window just outside the kiddie playground.
After walking the length of the lagoon, we decided to cross the street into another fenced in portion of the park and were extremely happy to discover that it was the Bestoff Sculpture Garden!
A coworker told me about this garden several years ago and I’d been meaning to find it. Glad we did today. What a tremendous place to spend some time.
Described by goneworleans about dot com as follows:
It’s a 5-acre garden under cypress and magnolia trees, as well as, centuries-old oak trees laden with Spanish moss, in the heart of City Park. It is beautifully landscaped. The garden contains several water features including a small cascading garden pool with stepping stones to cross. A lagoon that bisects the garden empties into two large basins, each containing a large sculpture. A sculpture pool cascades down into one of the lagoon basins. The lagoons are filled with fish and turtles. Herons and swans inhabit the area as well. Pathways wonder through the garden and lead to the larger sculptures. Because these paths were designed to preserve the extensive root patterns of the over 200 year-old live oak trees, they wonder through the garden in a design dictated by nature. Smaller sculptures are exhibited in the elliptical Sculpture Theater.
For a dollar you can obtain a guide to the sculptures, which I highly recommend.
Entitled “Mother and Child (1988) by Fernando Botero
Tree of Necklaces (reminded me of Mardi Gras) (2002) by Jean-Michel Othoniel
“Window and Ladder – Too Late for Help” by Leandro Erlich
This one is called “Monkeys” by Rona Pondick and it’s really disturbing when you look closely.
“Travelin’ Light” by Alison Saar
Pablo Casals’ Obelisk (1983) by Arman
One of the strangest things we discovered was what appears to be a grave between the sculpture garden and the botanical garden.
We only could spend three hours at the park today, so we agreed that our next trip in two weeks we will visit the Botanical Gardens and the NOMA. Pictures to follow.
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Frost, Unfamiliar
12 Tuesday Jan 2010
Posted in Gardening, Photography
Tags
Banana Trees, Frost, Gardens, Nature, New Orleans, Photography, Sword Fern
Every few years Mother Nature reminds us, we who live in this land unfamiliar with the deaths of winter, not to become complacent in the temperate world we inhabit. We, who are used to our banana trees and ferns flourishing in January as well as June, rarely expect to wake up to a garden in a less than lush state. But, nature is and will ever be impervious to the expectations of mere humans. Our desires are accommodated only by chance if they fit into the whole, grand scheme of this spinning planet with it’s moon-driven tides.
For the last few nights the stars have glittered like distant ice bergs in the clear, cold expanse of sky. I wonder: do they fall to earth while we sleep, transforming into the early morning sparkle of frost in our gardens?
(Cross-posted from Casa de Charlotte Della Luna.)
Sword Fern after frost
Banana Trees after frost
