My mom’s birthday was last week so my family and I decided to take a trip to Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh. My mom LOVES plants (that is no understatement). They are all over my parents’ house, so I knew she would thoroughly enjoy the 17 botanical gardens at Phipps. I had never been there, but I have seen picture that friends taken. It looked beautiful, but was nothing compared to the real thing.
There was an artist exhibition while we were there as well, and you know I wasn’t going to miss taking pictures of that. All of the pieces were glass sculpture variations created by artist Dale Chihuly. Check out his work, it is fantastic. You can check out more of his art in the botanical gardens as well.
Below are some cool shots I got while we were walking through, but if you ever make it into the area, you have to check it out for yourself. Pictures don’t do it justice. I apologize for the lack of descriptions in some of the captions. I’m really not a flower person and don’t know the name of some of the plants, so “pink flower” had to suffice.
Spiral glass sculpture by Dale Chihuly
Red tulips
Orange tulips
Instrument fountain in gardens
Daffodil
Hand painted instrument. I think it’s a cello. It was larger than a violin but smaller than a bass.
Flower garden close up
Flower garden
Close up of instrument fountain. It actually lit up and sprayed water out of each instrument. Pretty neat!
Glass sun sculpture by Dale Chihuly
A tequila plant. Yes, this is the actual plant we get tequila from.
Sausage spurge cactus
I don’t remember what kind of cactus this is, but the arms looked pretty cool.
Golden barrel cactus. Supposedly, you can cut this open and get water from them.
Americana cactus. This is probably the coolest looking plant I’ve ever seen. It looks prehistoric or something.
More of the americana cactus.
Some type of cactus
Rock fountain with fish
Outdoor garden. It looks like something out of the movie the Secret Garden.
Another phenomenal sculpture by Dale Chihuly
Banana tree
In the train room, there were set ups like this where dinosaurs were taking over. Made me laugh.
Train Room
Train room, again
Glass reed sculpture by Dale Chihuly
I have no idea what this is. So I’m just going to call it an orange and pink flower.