Foster Botanical Garden

If you are looking to escape to nature in the middle of the city, one of the best places you can go is to a botanical garden... it's always good to escape from the hustle and bustle and a great place to get inspiration. I've found that bringing along your digital camera to places like zoos and gardens can really heighten the experience (and also lengthen your visit) because you're more likely to look closely at things when you are thinking of what type of pictures you can produce. In Honolulu we have Foster's Botanical Garden, which is surprisingly peaceful and extremely beautiful for a place that is surrounded on one side by a freeway and on two other sides by roads that support downtown traffic nearly 24/7. It's a great escape that only costs around for $2 for entrance (mostly to support the park); there are so many beautiful plants and flowers there it's definitely well worth the price! Basically, it's a cheap and more natural summer activity that would be great for the whole family! Plus, it's a great way to learn about plants from around the world. These are just a few of my favorites (so as not to bore you); check out my flickr for more!

This plant has silly orange fruit; when I saw it I thought they looked like little octopi because of all the little nodes sprouting off of them! So weirdo scientist must have thought they looked different though, this plant was marked as a "nipple fruit!"



A beautiful crown flower plant in the purple and white variety, very popular for lei here in Hawai`i...

And the best part of crown flowers... caterpillars! I loved taking them home and growing; we'd always take them right back to the crown flower plants once they had become butterflies!


A gold-dust gecko hidden among the greenery; these little guys are not native to Hawai`i but sooo cute! There are a lot more of them on the Big Island, they are rarer on O`ahu.


And a pretty flower that looks almost like a sea anemone from the cannonball tree; the trunk of the tree itself is covered with cannonball sized gourds! This flower is actually dying; the live ones are much lighter with peach and purple tones.