More Views From the Dallas Arboretum

While visiting the Dallas Arboretum for the Chihuly Nights glass sculpture exhibit, I took a little time to look around the gardens before the sun set.  The main goal was to see the glass art sculptures at night, but I had never visited the gardens before so the lingering daylight was a bonus.  I found the gardens more formal than we typically see here in San Antonio but there are certainly things to take away from the professionally designed plantings that can translate to the average garden.

This row of Atlas Cedars and Italian Cypress makes a striking sculptural statement along a limestone wall.  Aztec grass planted in the bed below highlights the effect.

There's a long stone wall near my front door and a similar treatment could be a much more dramatic welcome than the random collection of plants there now.

These woody vines look good as a backdrop for the matching container plantings along this wall.  Green liriope is used here instead of variegated as a groundcover.

I'm always impressed by the discipline of the designs at public gardens with their repetition and mass plantings.

A lovely walkway lined with daylilies



Beautiful colors of Cleome massed in beds

Here Cleome is mixed with Dusty Miller and white Angelonia.  The gardens are quite popular during the special night show so the white and silver mixed in throughout the gardens adds highlights.

Sculptures and pieces in the permanent collection were also lit for the evening.

This highlighted urn is at the end of a beautiful formal courtyard

And a beautiful lighted sculpture in a stone fountain with more silvery plantings

This trip convinced me I should try to return and see more of the gardens in the daytime and during other seasons.