Kingsville, MO, USA
May 2008
Powell Gardens
How can you go wrong with flowers? While seeing two gardens in the heart of KC the day before, Hillary and I received a recommendation to go see Powell Gardens. I was planning on going to the Battle of Lexington SHS soon, and since the two were in the same general area, we went the next day to see them both.
After paying the $8 gate fee to get in, we headed to the visitor center, which also houses the gift shop and cafe. Inside, a small conservatory leads to a terrace in the back overlooking a large portion of the gardens. This place is pretty big. If you’re not in a hurry, the entire way is paved and is far from rugged. For the mobility-challenged, a courtesy trolley saunters from garden to garden to help out.
One thing the woman at the Discovery Center the day before had told me was that Powell Gardens often uses its grounds as a temporary art exhibit, allowing different types of art to be dispersed among the plants and flowers. When she went, Dinosaur statues were the highlight. This day, Chapungu was the theme: an assortment of stone sculptures from Zimbabwe that depicted stories of life in Africa. This exhibit ends in November of 2008.
The various gardens have a theme, such as perennials, rock & waterfall, meadows & wildflowers, and the island garden. The plants are very well-taken care of, and presented in a very orderly and creative fashion. They’re also painstakingly labeled, which is helpful for someone, who like me, doesn’t know a senecio obovatus from his elbow.
If you have a camera and forget to bring it to Powell Gardens, you will probably have the urge to find a tree – you have many species to choose from – from which to hang yourself. With the abundance of flowers, cardinals, geese, bluebirds, red winged blackbirds, and bees, you won’t be lacking subjects. Portraits are also a gimme when you have so many diverse and colorful backgrounds to choose.
I saw so many macro lenses floating around that I wanted to cry. Since I don’t have one, I had to make do with my 200mm telephoto, which garnered some decent shots. I also couldn’t make up my mind what lens to keep on – as soon as I’d snap on the long one for a close-up of the flora or fauna, a sweeping vista or arrangement of flowerbeds would catch my eye and make me switch back to my wide angle lens.
Back at the visitor center, I discovered that Powell Gardens actually manages Kaufman Garden, which we had been to the day before. That explained a lot; both were very well-kept. Powell Gardens also offers wedding services (complete with its own chapel), various workshops on gardening and rainwater collection, and in the spirit of the current art exhibit, a rock sculpting class – though the latter was up over $800. That’s eight-zero-zero.
See more photos of Powell Gardens:
