Flowers at the National Botanical Garden
Took advantage of having a day off last week to visit the National Botanical Garden of Belgium. Was lucky to have sunny weather that day, a stark contrast to the rainy days we are having here now.
Next to enjoying the nice weather with a relaxing stroll through the large park, wanted to admire the unique plants and flowers in the Plant Palace greenhouse.
Of course, having a fun day out taking in the sights for me also means snapping some photos of the flowers or other interesting fauna. Hope you will enjoy this collection of photos taken in the National Botanical Garden.
While it may not be a technically good photo or the portrait of a strikingly beautiful flower, for some reason I personally really like how this particular photo came out, with the giant water lilies blurred in the background like that.
Did bring along the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 macro lens but ended up using the EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 lens throughout the entire day. It is a more versatile walk around lens with a wider focal range, but it isn’t as sharp as the macro lens and mounted on the 450D it does require plenty of light to produce good results.
Was disappointed didn’t get to see any of the giant butterflies in the greenhouse that were advertised on their website, so when I spotted this butterfly outside in the park, couldn’t resist to snap a few photos of it.
One of the lovely lotus flowers growing in the greenhouse’s tropical section, a section which also houses the giant water lilies in a large pond as well as the purple lotus flowers shown further above.
Although it is only a short drive away, hadn’t visited the National Botanical Garden yet as it underwent -and is still undergoing- much needed renovations.
It isn’t only a large greenhouse where each section is dedicated to the unique vegetation found in different climates like the Mediterranean, tropics,… but there is also a large park that houses the 12th century Bouchout castle and a large library dedicated to botany.
You can see the other photos taken at the National Botanical Garden in the corresponding photo set on Flickr.
Very pretty