Revisiting old friends

 I had the opportunity today to spend a little time in the Toledo Botanical Gardens, a favorite haunt that I had not visited for several years.The weather was less than ideal--fifty degrees with a damp wind, heavily overcast, occasionally drizzly--but the gardens were, as always, a joy. I of course had gone off without a camera as the stop was unplanned. (Someday I may have to get a phone with internet, but for now, I am hanging onto my beloved, nearly indestructible flip phone.)

  The rhododendron collection was in full bloom, and those pure whites and singing pinks work regardless of lack of sun. The floor of the woodland garden was a sea of blue and white scilla and spangled with trilliums and wild geranium. One patch of yellow lady's slipper (seen here in a 2012 photo) provided a memory of sunshine on a gray day.

On the same path, a large swath of shooting stars (also 2012 photos)  had definitely come down to earth.

My beloved European copper beech was as spectacular as ever.

 And then, in the herb garden, was a plant I had seen only in pictures (these courtesy of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center): camassia. I am not certain if the specimen next to my favorite bench was the eastern or western variety (I expect the latter, because the flowers were really blue),  but the utter gorgeousness of the flowers inspired serious plant lust.

Camassia quamash, a western species. Doesn't that center just pop?

I need to find more excuses to visit the garden.