View of the Arboretum Strolling Garden

I like to visit the Arboretum gardens several times each week. On this particular day, I was fortunate to walk through the gardens no fewer than three times. It was supposed to rain (but never really did), so I stopped in the morning before work, while it was sunny. I had an afternoon meeting on campus, so I popped in briefly before and after that as well (when I visit campus, I park in a parking lot near the gardens and the law school building; from there, I have to walk through the gardens to get to campus).

The garden is really in the swing of things in August, with all of the bright flowers in full bloom, and the afternoon clouds made the scene even more visually interesting somehow. (Here in a recent prior blip is a different angle of this same scene.) I noted that the garden's hummingbirds were more active during my morning visit - I barely saw them in the afternoon. And I found out, because I finally asked somebody, what those lovely pink and white blooms are that the hummingbirds adore. They are a variety of ornamental Nicotiana, a member of the tobacco family. And I admit I wondered whether one of the reasons that the hummingbirds enjoy them may be that they get some kind of tobacco buzz from them? Hmm. Very interesting.

I walked over to the arbor, a little structure with a bench near the edge of the strolling garden. Last year, they had planted both heavenly blue morning glories and gourds, which wound their vines up through the arbor. This year, I only saw gourds - and I have to say, it is pretty cool to stand beneath the arbor and look up and see gourds above your head! I do admit I wondered if any of them ever fall on unsuspecting visitors.

Through the arbor, in front of us, center of frame is the solar clock. Just to the left of its tip is a white events tent that isn't usually there. During my late-afternoon visit, men and women in dress clothes were being given a tour. I presumed it was a prelude to some kind of donor dinner. (Maybe someday I will be one of them?) The tealy-blue building behind all of that is the law school building.

To the left out of frame is the Witness Tree. To the right out of frame are the fountain, the lily pond, and the pollinator gardens. Behind me as I stand in the arbor is a garden of young sunflowers (last year's sunflower garden was the source of all of my August and September sunflower blips). And the noises that I heard from my far left were the sounds of construction of a much-anticipated children's garden.

The Arboretum gardens, also known as the H. O. Smith Botanic Gardens, are one of Penn State's best-kept secrets. And so the song to accompany this photo of these gardens that I love and visit often is Bruce Springsteen's Secret Garden.