Christana and I stumbled upon the Golden Gate Park Botanical Gardens on our excursion south on Tuesday!

(The museums are free on the first Tuesday of each month. We also hit the Asian Art and de Young Museums!)

The gardens were beautiful–such species diversity and what a pleasant surprise! We walked and talked and took photos and enjoyed seeing giant tree ferns, flowering bushes, sweet smelling trees, ancient agave plants, and gigantic flowers the size of a hat!

I was pleasantly surprised by some of the plants that can grow here in California and even wrote down the names of several species to add to my when-I-have-a-garden wish list. (Yes, ever the botanist.)

We had a lovely afternoon.