Longfellows in the Garden

Our local botanical garden - Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden - is a whole mile away - close enough to walk on a pretty spring day. I love to drop in frequently to see what's looking good in their plantings and to consider things to add to mine. Someday soon I will take you there to see some of the pretty things they have and to tell you about it. But not today. Instead we have a special event.

Currently they have a fun exhibit of glass sculptures by Hans Godo Frabel. The pieces are placed throughout the property and among the plants all over the garden. Last weekend we saw about half the exhibit, which was either geometric glass sculpture like this fountain or his more whimsical "longfellows" and clowns.


These are longfellows. As you can see, they are like stick figures in glass, but have elongated legs and arms. Their heads are tiny, but yet they have faces. This is my favorite group. They are settled in among the Japanese maples and junipers in the Asian Garden. There is a stream that flows from the Tea House above, down the hill and then behind this group. The columns are glass and reflect the water, the sky and the plants all around the figures. The sun was bouncing off the figures and sparkling so that they seemed to be moving.


Another fun group is a dozen clowns who are balanced on floating glass balls in the lily pond that surrounds the children's garden. There are about a dozen of them on brightly colored balls.









This group of the longfellows was riding a turn of the century bicycle. At one time this property was the location of a bicycling club and they would have ridden high wheelers like this.

We hope to go back this weekend to see the rest of the glass exhibit ... and to see what's bloomed this week!