Royal Botanical Gardens

The Royal Botanical Gardens (RBG), located in Hamilton, Ontario, is designated a National Historic Site of Canada. I live only an hour and a half away from the RBG but yet I had never been until today. Today I took the trip down to the RBG and was wowed by the gardens. I went to three of the gardens today and each experience was a pleasant one. I started out exploring the Hendrie Park Gardens, which comprises a rose garden, statue garden (closed at the moment due to COVID-19) and a native plant garden among other themes gardens. The first two photos here are showing the rose garden in all its glory with full blooms and beautiful colours. The tall purple flowers seen in both photos are actually a type of onion that is planted among the roses to help them fight disease and pests.

Moving on from the rose garden and into the native plant garden, I saw this beautiful yellow flower that I thought was perfect. Adding the overcast day, this made for an amazing photo in my opinion with the right amount of shade and lighting. You can also find this photo on my portfolio page as well.

Still, within the native plant garden, I came across this Eastern Garter Snake about half a metre off the ground, sunning itself. The following two photos are showing this snake. The first photo is the favourite one I took that day and can also be found on my portfolio page. In the second photo if you look above the snakes head you are able to find a honey bee going about its day. The bee was trying to pollinate the flowers that the snake had wrapped itself around, which ended up being successful for the most part.

Keeping on the theme of bees, the next two photos are showcasing them. I am in no way a bee expert but I think the two bees in these photos are honey bees. I personally like the second photo better than the first, but that is mainly due to the bee being closer to my lens and therefore larger.

The following four photos are of what the RBG is most famous for which is its flowers. I do not know the type of flower these are, but the first three photos were taken in Hendrie Park, while the last photo was taken in the Rock Garden. The first three photos are interesting in my opinion as I had a very low AP which meant that when I focused on one of the flowers at the very front the flowers in the back just blended away into colours mainly.

The final photo in this post does not relate to the RBG, but it does relate to my day. As I was driving home I stopped in Paris to see the river and I was not disappointed at all. In this photo is a dam from when mills were operating on the river, and in the background is the CN bridge over the Grand River, over which CN freight trains and VIA Rail passenger trains pass over multiple times a day.

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