March 9-26, 2018: Our Spring Trip to Fort Lauderdale
	January 21-22, 2018: A Wedding and A Day in Fort Worth
	Return to the Index for 2018

On Wednesday, January 24th, Guy came up from San Antonio for a visit with Fred and myself. He occasionally just wants to get away from San Antonio to decompress, and I think that was the reason for his visit this week.

A Visit to the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge

While Guy was visiting us, we visited a couple of new places we had not taken him before; one of the was the new Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge. To get there (the bridge is about four miles away from the townhouse), we followed a circuitous route to end up on Riverfront Boulevard where we could find a place to park.

We did, near a design showroom called "Smink". That showroom was near the east end of the Ronald Kirk Pedestrian Bridge across the Trinity River.

The Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, which spans the Trinity River, was named for Margaret Hunt Hill, an heiress and philanthropist. The bridge was constructed as part of the Trinity River Project, and was at least partly intended to be a new symbol for the City of Dallas. Designed by Santiago Calatrava, it was to be just one of three such bridges planned to be built over the Trinity; the second, the Margaret McDermott Bridge, is completed, but the third one has been cancelled. The span parallels the Ronald Kirk Bridge, a walking bridge that was previously the Continental Avenue bridge. (Pedestrians are not allowed on the Hunt Bridge; the only time they were was on the day it opened, and you can find pictures we took on our visit that day on an album page from 2012.)

We had intended to walk across the bridge and have lunch at one of the restaurants in the Trinity Groves area at the west side of both bridges. Near the showroom, however, we found a group of LimeBikes, and we decided to download the app and rent three of them to ride across the Kirk Bridge. This was our first time renting these bikes; they have become ubiquitous during the past year. We were able to get the app to work (and found that the first rental is actually free). We rode them across the Kirk Bridge, parked them at one of the restaurants there, and then rode them back across afterwards- leaving them in the same spot where we had found them.

From the west side of the bridge, I took two good pictures of the Dallas skyline:

A Visit to the Dallas Arboretum

Another thing that Guy and ourselves like to do is go to the Dallas Arboretum, and so we thought we would make a trip over there as well while Guy was here visiting.

The Dallas Arboretum is not too far from where I live over on Inwood- I'd guess about six or seven miles as the crow flies (see the map opposite)- but you can't get there as the crow flies because White Rock Lake is in the way. So you can either go through town and wind your way around the south end of the lake or you can take Mockingbird over around the north side of the lake. When Fred and I go there from the house, as we are doing with Guy today, the northern route is most direct.

In this closer view, you can see the south end of White Rock Lake and you can pick out the bike trail that hugs the lake shore almost all the way around. At the south end is White Rock Lake Dam and spillway, which takes the overflow water and sends it under Garland Road to continue on down to the Trinity River.

The bike path used to cross the top of the dam, but for one reason or another, the bike path was rerouted some years ago, and now it goes through some parkland and playing fields south of the dam, across the spillway, up Garland Road for a ways, and then back north along the lake shore.

You can also see a closer view of the Arboretum in this picture, and can begin to pick out some of the pathways through the gardens.

Finally, in this close-up of the Arboretum itself, you can see most of the major features- including the parking area just off Garland Road, the new administrative buildings, the restaurant and gift shop (all right near the parking lot) and, off in the middle of the gardens, the DeGolyer house (the former residence of the family that donated the land for the Arboretum to the Arboretum Society).

You can also see the maze of pathways that criss-cross the gardens.

Today we are just going to wander around along no particular route, so all I want to do is show you a diagram of the Arboretum and mark on it a few of the places that we stopped.

I have marked on the diagram at right the three places where we took pictures today (even though we didn't take very many of them).

The "A Tasteful Place" garden, which encompasses the Bingham Overlook, the Potager Display Gardens, the Charlotte and Donald Test Pavilion, and the Three Sisters Overlook of the Simmons Lagoon, is the newest addition to the Arboretum. We were here last November to see the Christmas Carousels.

We also walked through the Jonsson Color Garden to see some of the azaleas that are already blooming, and we stopped in A Woman's Garden as well.

Of course we walked elsewhere through the gardens, but there was not a lot in bloom just yet, which accounts for the relative dearth of pictures from this visit.

We of course entered the Arboretum through the Trammell Crow Entry Plaza, and from there we walked into A Tasteful Place. That's where I got a nice picture of Fred and the Potager Gardens; that's the Charlotte and Donald Test Pavilion in the background. The potager display gardens are four individual quadrants comprising an ornamental kitchen garden, or “potager,” as it is called by the French, which is a productive working garden that is also visually beautiful, drawing on European gardening principles and artful arrangement. The potager gardens are a signature element of the "Tasteful Place" development with in-season vegetables, herbs and flowers, planted ornamentally and interspersed with flowers to attract pollinators and beneficial insects. The garden was donated by dallas socialite Catherine Corrigan in honor of her mother, Marilyn R. Corrigan.

To me, the most beautiful feature of this new garden is the Simmons Lagoon, and there is an overlook where you can see all of it, as well as White Rock Lake, the stone bridge, and the cascades. I took a series of pictures from the Three Sisters Overlook, and put them together into this panoramic view:

The Arboretum has a number of nice water features, and up until now the nicest of them has been the artificial creek that runs down to the Rudchik Red Maple Rill. But now, that feature has some competition- the new artificial stream that runs down through the Fern Dell and over the new cascades and into the Simmons Lagoon.

The Cascades Above the Simmons Lagoon (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

Covering more than an acre, the lagoon sits just below the main garden. The center features a beautiful, lighted fountain that changes shape and pattern. The edges of the lagoon are surrounded by large boulders and lush lawns. A bridge crosses just below the cascades where they pour into the lagoon.

Meandering walkways with numerous seating areas allow visitors to enjoy the ambience and beauty of this new garden. These walkways also offer numerous venues for photographers, and we saw a couple of what were apparently wedding photographs being taken.

As I mentioned above, this new cascade and bridge have been very well-done, and they rival the stream that flows down through the Nancy Rudchik Red Maple Rill (that you've undoubtedly seen before in these pages).

Looking Back at A Tasteful Place

We crossed the bridge and continued along the pathway that leads east towards the Jonsson Color Garden. That's where many of the winding walkways and seating areas offer views of the new garden.

Just before we got to the color garden itself, I looked back to get a nice picture of the new lagoon and A Tasteful Place behind and above it.

We also walked over to the Palmer Fern Dell, which is nestled between the new "A Tasteful Place" area and the Jonsson Color Garden. This garden has more than 90 varieties of ferns, camellias, azaleas and mature trees border a peaceful brook, which winds throughout this enchanting mini-garden (and, incidentally, feeds the cascade down into the Simmons Lagoon). The Palmer Fern Dell was designed by Naud Burnett II, a famous regional landscape designer, and while the dell is always a pleasant place to walk, it is best in the summer months due to the micro-fine mist system that regularly envelops the garden.

Next, we entered the west end of the 6.5-acre Margaret Elisabeth Jonsson Color Garden, designed by Naud Burnett II, which features large, sweeping lawns and flower beds that are full of seasonal plants.

Looking East Across the Jonsson Color Garden

The Jonsson Color Garden features three sections divided by walkways with another walkway surrounding the entire garden. The Color Garden is home to more than 2,000 varieties of azaleas; these border the Color Garden on the north and south and bloom lavishly in the spring (of course now, at the end of November, they aren't blooming). Along the interior side of the walkway are seasonal plantings such as daffodils and tulips in the spring, a vibrant display of bananas and tapioca plants in the summer, brightly colored chrysanthemums in the fall. Today, some of the redbud trees were in full bloom.

A Woman's Garden is a gift from the Women’s Council of the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden. This serene and nationally acclaimed Dallas garden features terraced walkways and exceptional views.

At the Reflecting Pool Sculpture

Phase 1 of this 1.8-acre formal garden was designed in 1997 by landscape architect Morgan Wheelock. A Woman’s Garden is comprised of several smaller outdoor garden "rooms" including the Pecan Parterre and the Poetry Garden which features a sunken garden of roses. The Majestic Allee where visitors can view White Rock Lake just beyond a dramatic reflecting pool.

At one side of this pool, there is what appears to be a large picture frame, and in it the sculpture of a voluptous woman looking out across the pool. It is a frequent object of people's photographs, as well as a spot from which many visitors like to take their own pictures, perhaps recording what it is that the sculpted woman "sees" in her field of view.

Phase 2, which opened to the public in the spring of 2006, was designed by designed by Morgan Wheelock and executed by Warren Johnson. It boasts alluring features such as a native Texas limestone bridge, a 140-foot hanging garden, and a wellspring surrounded by towering Dawn Redwoods. These two beautiful gardens were designed to celebrate the strength, courage, creativity and nurturing demeanor of women.

We spent a few hours, all told, wandering through the gardens, but for some reason I can't quite remember, these were all the pictures that we took on our visit today. If you want to see more of the Arboretum, pick just about any year from the photo album and there will be one or more pages devoted to visits to this incredible botanical garden.

You can use the links below to continue to another album page.

	March 9-26, 2018: Our Spring Trip to Fort Lauderdale
	January 21-22, 2018: A Wedding and A Day in Fort Worth
	Return to the Index for 2018