Wednesday Walk in the Botanical Gardens

In summer, a walk in the Botanical Gardens is a walk amongst a huge variety of plants. Flowerbeds, herbs, various trees and shrubs... Your eyes try to look in all directions at the same time so you don't miss a thing. But in winter, the Botanical Gardens are like any other park. The flowerbeds hide under a thick carpet of snow and all the deciduous trees without leaves look alike.

If the longing for summer becomes unbearable, you can take a stroll through the greenhouses instead of strolling through the park. Huge greenhouses are located near the entrance to the park and inside these greenhouses you can find hot summers and different climate zones. But it was in the park that I decided to take a walk this time, so I walked past the greenhouses.

Some sunny spots near the wall of the greenhouses are well protected from the wind and well heated during the day. Although there is still snow all around, a small patch of ground has already been freed from the cold captivity. The most frost-resistant plants have already started their growing season. You can find out more about these plants if you check out the Botanical Gardens website. I did, and found out that snowdrops, crocuses and primroses are going to bloom in March.

March is the start of spring in the calendar, but in the north March is the best winter month. The weather is still quite cold, usually a little below 0°C. But in March, the length of the daylight hours increases significantly and there are often sunny days. The sun is not just shining, but also visibly warming. If you raise your face towards the sun, you can get a winter tan, smooth and beautiful.

The unusual chandeliers caught my attention. It was the first time I had seen something like that! Turns out baskets can be used for more than just picking berries and mushrooms!

It had snowed a while ago, then a little thaw, and it got cold again during the night. The paths in the park were covered with an ice crust, and it was not very comfortable to walk on them. So I turned off onto wide paths sprinkled with sand, and soon I was back next to the greenhouses. The greenhouse building has a direct exit from the garden to the street, but I didn't want to end my walk so quickly.

I decided to walk past the Japanese Garden to the old wooden mansion of the Garden Director. The Japanese garden is a piece of nature that reminds us of the Far East. Characteristic Far Eastern plants are planted there, and oriental-style park sculptures and pavilions have been built. In April the cherry blossoms will start blooming in this garden and it will be a delightful place to stroll.

The wooden mansion of the garden's director would be interesting on its own, even if it stood on an ordinary street. It is a wonderful example of a timber dwelling house with a mezzanine in the classicist style. I think it is a house for a large family. In the summer, a large table was probably set up in the front garden and the whole family would gather around the samovar.

The large snowy space is transformed in the summer. There is a large bed of peonies in the clearing in front of the house and an information board helps to understand the varieties of peonies. It's very easy to use this billboard, just align the area of the flowerbed and the illustration.

Time to end the walk! I head back to the exit and walk through the very door in the greenhouse complex I showed you a little earlier. At the same time I peek into the greenhouse through the fogged glass, palm trees and other tropical plants fill the entire space inside the greenhouse.

○	○
Smartphone	Google Pixel 3a
Location	Saint Petersburg, Russia

This is my entry for the #WednesdayWalk challenge by @tattoodjay.