the CLE Botanical Garden

Today we made a date to meet some friends at the Cleveland Botanical Gardens.  It was hot.  OK, it was VERY hot.  But the gardens were beautiful and well worth the sweat.  The Hershey Children's Garden was particularly fantastic.  There is a sundial fountain to splash in (bring a bathing suit if you plan to stay awhile), a larger-than-life treehouse with a ramp for complete accessibility, a pond full of turtles, tadpoles, fish and frogs that the kids can actually reach, and an activity area complete with sandbox, craft tables, and potting bench.  Ella made a turtle sun catcher (way cooler than the construction paper turtle I came up with) at the craft tables and planted sunflower seeds at the potting bench.

    

A few tips for your visit: We arrived just before they opened at 10:00am.  The pros: We got to enjoy the Children's Garden for about 20 minutes before droves of summer camp aged children descended on the garden.  And it wasn't as hot at 10am as it was when we left just before 1:00.  The cons:  Droves of summer camp aged kids crowded into the children's garden around 10:30am.  There were at least two buses full of kids waiting in the drop-off drive when I arrived in the morning and I'm sure more followed.  I'm sure this typical for the summer, and even during the school year, as the gardens would make for quite a wonderful field trip.  We enjoyed ours!