Botanical Gardens Nature Journal

            The Fort Worth Botanic Garden is quietly curated every day as traffic flies by on University Drive. Upon entering, any visitor can be sure they’ve reached a nature extravaganza as a rose garden clock ticks in the median greeting the arriving cars. The purchase of a $12 admission ticket undermines the raw, primitive aura one comes for, nonetheless I swipe my card and begin.

            The first door opens up to the rainforest greenhouse. The manmade conditions mimic those of the Amazon to enable non-native species of plants grow. The humidity grossly intensifies producing a soupy, viscous air that is warmed by the sun shining through the glass panes. The exhibit shapes around an oval pathway with vegetation along the outside and in the center. A river meanders through the middle leading to a waterfall whose crash sprays a mist on to any plants around it. Above, irrigation-like pipes release a slow drip of water imitating the hundreds of inches of rainfall per year. Like any rainforest, this room marks the pinnacle of diversity. Much like the forests depicted in Jurassic Park, ferns and rhubarbs coated the floor as each leaf fought the others for the prime position for sunlight. Only the sparse trees that would form the canopy resided safely above the eternal struggle for sunshine.

            I left this enclosure and made way for the garden outside. A stone road opened up to a lush assortment of plants each with a plaque labeling their genus and species. Vines weaved in and between arches that circled above my head as if I was departing from an old world and warping into a new.

            A worn down wooden bridge carves into woodland with indigenous Texan species on the right side and migrant on the left. This deeper depth of the garden provided a sanctuary from the urban world. Cars’ background noise was drown out through the trees. No building in downtown Fort Worth was visible. All that stimulated my five senses were Mother Nature and the occasional, intrusive airplane flyby.

            I crossed through the lifeless rose garden but stumbled into the majestic hedge garden. A small pool and soft spraying fountain made ripples in the foreground. Two staircases with a slight incline gradually climbed only about 15 feet high to a shelter house. Forming the perimeter on the outside of both staircases were three squares of neatly trimmed hedges. Silver gumdrop plants overflowed along the edges coinciding with the October breeze rustling through yet contrasted a potted succulent center in the brush. The medial portion of the staircases featured pairs of triangle hedges with each hypotenuse parallel with its partner. Finally, a stream of mini waterfalls split the entire terrace into two halves.

            I stood in the shelter house and gazed over the hedges for a peaceful 45 minutes, trying to bask in the glory that was this garden. Squirrels tussled, birds sang, and Hunter Ricks texted on his phone. For a moment, my desire imitated Claude Monet’s in his own garden, “My wish was to stay always like this, living quietly in a corner of nature.”