Airlie Gardens in Wilmington, NC - Spring is Here!

Our neighbors from New York have come down for a few days' visit and the weather has certainly cooperated with temps in the 70s for the first couple of days.  


We decided to go to Airlie Gardens even though we didn't think any of the flowers would be out!  We were wrong as the daffodils and pansies were blooming and even better, their wonderful collection of Camelias were blooming as well.

One of the many varieties of Camelias they had was this pretty pink one.  They were all just beautiful and obviously prefer the shade.

This was one of the resident mute swans swimming on the small lake on the property.  Our neighbor got some terrific pictures later on of this swan and a Canada Goose fighting something fierce!

Like in Florida, some of the early azaleas were also blooming!  We were in shorts sleeves.

In many places the camelias had fallen off the trees and were just laying there like a well composed picture.  Both Joe and I were struck with how pretty they looked sitting on the ground right where they landed!

This is the "bottle house" in the Sculpture Garden.  It is composed of the bottoms of bottles and if you look inside, you will see the rest of the bottle!

You get the idea here!