It’s Easter Sunday afternoon, and as usual I’m on the way to Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, MD.
Except it’s pouring rain.
Pouring rain on my Perfect Easter Garden!
So I get there and park easily, something much harder if it were 60 degrees and sunny and thus packed. Time to walk around the garden in the rain.
Maybe not on this Forbidden Patch of Grass guarded by geese.
By the bridge, the pond, the Japanese garden…
Flowers, of course.
“Winter Thriller Series: Mango Magic” sounds like good TV.
In-a-gadda-da-Brookside?
Is this plant what the Train song is talking about? Ohhhh…
A little late, Lenten Rose. Lent’s over now.
“Snow-in-Summer: Drought Tolerant White Flowers in Spring”
An azalea called Easter Parade. That’s today!
Wheeee!
It’s not a maze. It’s a labyrinth.
I just want to keep walking around…
It’s… it’s still my Perfect Easter Garden.
I’ve been coming here for Easter since 2009, having first come a couple times in the preceding weeks during a similar collection of visits to local parks and trails (and a testament to the variety of them around here in how little overlap there ended up being in places I visited then and now).
I spent the past many weeks trying to improve that acknowledgment and appreciation of the natural and historical areas around here. No claims to being an expert on anything. Not even close to doing any of these places justice. Always with the back of mind concern I’d unwittingly wander into some clandestine happenings deep in the woods and my life would be forever changed. And it’s just nice to get out and see things, even if weather or situation isn’t ideal. Impressed that I was almost never the only one at these places, even when it was freezing, rainy, and almost dark.
Sometimes it’s just about finding opportunities to explore, to follow a curiosity, to see what’s further down the path. To check out clever protest signs, some cool animals, a sunset over a local lake, over a local creek, a rainy island full of geese, a flowing river. And a familiar botanical garden.
I love coming to Brookside on Easter because of not only the blooming and budding spring plants but also the different people all gathered here enjoying it all, where for at least this moment we can forget that the world is going to hell. Maybe that curiosity and exploration may save us. Or at least give us something cool to see.