San Diego Zoo Garden Festival "Shades of Green" - Day 1

As much as I love the animals, the flowers at the San Diego Zoo are nothing short of amazing. I can't help but take pictures of the flowers - even the little daises that grow along the pathways. So you can imagine how excited I get when Garden Festival comes along. In fact, I have made it our official Mother's Day tradition!

Today was all about the orchids. The Zoo's Orchid House, which is open all four days of Garden Festival, is filled with the 900 different types of orchids the Zoo has. These orchids never leave the Orchid House because they are too delicate to have on the pathways. I also found out that some of the orchids were confiscated from people trying to smuggle them in to the country. For this reason, there are some very unique and non-native orchids on display.


I could have spent all day inside the Orchid House.

Every time I turned around there was another beautiful orchid waiting to mesmerize me.

These orchids reminded me of the singing flowers from Alice in Wonderland.

This year marks the 20th annual Garden Festival and the theme "Shades of Green" is aimed at bringing attention to the Zoo as a world-class botanical garden. With more than 700,000 plants and over 900 different types of orchids alone, the Zoos accredited botanical collection gets some much-deserved attention during this four-day festival highlighting all that is green.

There is a quote at the entrance to the Zoo's Orchid House that reads:

"The only person ever to see some rare tropical orchid might be a bulldozer operator who is clearing the two or three acres that constitute its only habitat on earth."

Thanks to the hard work and dedication of the horticulture staff, I was able to see some of these rare orchids today.

I'm looking forward to seeing more of the Zoo's botanical beauty tomorrow.

To see more pictures from the Orchid House visit my Flickr album.