Believe or not, I am not a gardening enthusiast. I mean, I can appreciate a job well done, but I’m not exactly on top of my perennials. That being said, the Rose Test Garden is what I would consider a job well done. Even knowing f-all about flowers, I really was impressed. That and the fact that it has commanding views of the city make this a must do.
Gardens at the Bellagio - Originally Published 2010
A garden. In Las Vegas. Right next to the hotel lobby. I’m serious.
When The Bellagio was constructed, a space was set aside in the tradition of the European gardens. A crew of 140 horticulturalists updates the garden five times a year and deal with the day-to-day maintenance.
Let’s analyze this for a moment. The garden is expansive. It easily occupies the same amount of space as a few football fields. It doesn’t cost a dime to enter.
The Bellagio could have just as easily put another bank of slot machines in the same space. But they didn’t. They took it upon themselves to secure a little bit of real estate just so they could put in something nice to look at. Figuring labor and the cost of plants compounded by the fact that there is nowhere to shove a quarter, it must cost them a fortune to operate it. And yet they do.
Thank you, Bellagio.
A view from the outside.
Victoria Butterfly Garden - Originally Published 2009
Saint Tupin-Upon-Avon is an obscure saint. Tupin-Upon-Avon is in charge of Americans who do not pay attention when they travel to foreign countries. I have become connected to St. Tupin-Upon-Avon because she has seen me through a few scrapes, most recently at the Victoria Butterfly Garden.
You see, in order to get to the Victoria Butterfly Gardens, you need to take a bus. Without bogging you down in the details about my experience, let’s just say I didn’t so a good job of paying attention to the bus schedule.
We toured the gardens leisurely spending just over an hour among the lush, green foliage and the colorful insects.
Now here’s where my personal patron saint comes into play. I figured that this bus, like all buses runs every fifteen minutes. Wrong! It runs every hour. We just missed the departing bus and our reward was fifty-five minutes in the warm Victoria sunlight.
Thankfully, after a few prayers to the patron saint of American dumbasses, she sent a bus along so we could enjoy a few hours in Victoria.
Portrait of the artist waiting on a bus.