Day 4 of my NJ trip (Well some of it)!

This was part of the last full day of my trip to NJ. I am going to break up this post. Today I will post some of my parents gardens and the botanical garden and then tomorrow I will post the rest of the Botanical Garden pictures. There are just too many! Sunday morning Megan and I went to Van Heusen and Bass outlet one more time. I bought John another golf shirt and I got 2 more tops at Bass for myself. Really love no sales tax on clothes in NJ! My Mom, Megan, my sister, Sue and I went to the Skylands Botanical Garden in Ringwood, NJ. What a beautiful place! I had gone to the Ringwood Manor when I was a child with the school but never to the gardens. You know I love flowers and I was not disappointed. NJ has been very cool this Spring so not all the flowers were out, but that didn't matter because what was out was beautiful! I also took some pictures of my Mom and Dad's flowers. I will start with them and then show you the Botanical Gardens flowers. Hope you enjoy the tour!


If you were a bird wouldn't you love to live here! My Dad made this and he is very proud of it-as he should be.


My Dad also built this gazebo and then planted a wisteria on it. He had to wait almost 12 yrs. for the wisteria to bloom and last year it finally did. This year it had even more flowers!


This is one view of my Mom's garden, which I love.


Here's another view of her garden. Not many flowers blooming right now but they will be soon!


My Mom has a constant battle with squirrels and this one just annoyed the heck out of her! She said it comes everyday and few times a day and perches itself on her birdbath and drinks water from it for almost 1/2 an hour!!


My Dad rescued this azaela from another part of the yard. It was doing well there but it seems to be doing really well by his barn/shop!


Mom has this azaela in her garden up by the house and it is always a showstopper!


My Dad planted this iris along the picket fence he has down by his barn/shop (my Mom claims he stole it from her garden-they just crack me up!!). Isn't it a beauty!


Their rhodedendrons just started blooming and they were absolutely beautiful!


Here is another pretty blue iris along the fence.

Skylands Botanical Garden:


Megan took a picture of me, my Mom and my sister, Sue at the beginning of our tour in the Garden.


Here is a closeup of the same picture of us.


Megan came down a spiral staircase and I caught this picture of her.


This picture I thought was a great one of Megan and my Mom.


I don't have that many pictures of my Mom, so I asked her if she could sit up on the wall and I would take a picture of her. First I didn't think she would be able to get up on the wall and then she just hopped up there!

Here are the Tree Peony's-they were all just gorgeous!







Here are some azaelas. We start with the white azaela and then move on to the Exbury deciduous azaelas that were growing along the woodland trail. They were just beautiful!!







Tomorrow I'll post the rest of my Botanical Garden pictures. There will be some beautiful iris, fountains, statues and lilacs! I hope you can join me!