Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Hahn Horticultural Gardens

On Sunday, after our trip to Mountain Lake, we stopped in Blacksburg to walk through the Hahn Horticultural Gardens. It's funny that in all of our trips to Blacksburg over the last 12 years, we didn't know this place existed. i found information about it while looking for things to do in the Blacksburg area. These garden are open year round, and free to the public.



The gardens are nearly six acres of teaching and display gardens located on the campus of Virginia Tech. The water gardens were by far the favorite place for the kids. Their is a beautiful waterfall and bridge, and the pond is full of koi fish and a pair of baby duckling.



i think they were used to being fed, because the duckling followed us everywhere around the pond, and the fish followed the ducklings.



i think my kids could have spent all day here. They had so much fun just watching the fish and ducklings. We also heard a frog croaking, and they looked everywhere but couldn't find him.


The gardens were really beautiful. There was lots of unusual flowers, trees and shrubs. Most everything as labeled so you could identify each plant. i've already forgotten the names of many of the flowers i took pictures of. :) This was a type of coneflower. i've never seen this color before and thought they were beautiful and unusual.

It was really fun to see the kids so enthusiastic about the different flowers and plants. Sage needed to know what everything was, and ever flower seemed to be more beautiful than the last to her.

This little tree (Japanese maple??) made a wonderful hideout.


i have no idea what these were, but they were HUGE and beautiful.



In the Shade garden resides a "garden sprite" - a sandstone rendition of Frank Lloyd Wright's "Maid in the Mud".

This big leaf Magnolia had blooms that were 12" across. They were really stunning!! We really enjoyed our visit to the gardens, and plan to make it a regular stop when we are visiting Blacksburg.


Before leaving we headed over to the Duck pond, another popular place on the VT campus. My kids both fell in love with this tree. It was huge and reminded us all of Grandmother Willow. Can you see both my kids peeking out?

Between Mountain Lake and The HH Gardens it was a really a fabulous day.

1 comment:

  1. The japanese maple looks so well kept, I wish I was in that garden now. I love the moat around the entire place, more pictures please!!

    -Oscar Valencia

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