Any botanical garden worth a nickle handles the standard variety of perennials, roses, and shrubs well, and the Atlanta Botanical Garden is no different. Thus, our visit reportage focuses on those qualities that elevate the Atlanta Botanical Garden. If you’re in Atlanta and manage to survive the interstates, the Atlanta Botanical Garden is nestled downtown, which is a hop, skip, and a jump from the Atlanta High Museum of Art and not too far from the Georgia Aquarium. Compared to the Georgia Botanical Garden and the Chicago Botanic Garden (note: botanic in Chicago, not botanical), the Atlanta Botanical Garden is fairly smallish, but…it packs a punch, and further, the Atlanta Botanical Garden most definitely caters to children. There is a children’s garden, in which all manner of childsplay (splashing in fountains, screaming, running - and that’s the parents) is on display.

The Atlanta Botanical Garden has traditionally done a stellar job of using the grounds for various installations of landscape art. During our visit, there were gigantic insects roaming the grounds, and the children love them. The skyline of Atlanta is visible often in the garden (see photo at right), never allowing one to forget one is in the direct center of a very very large urban area.

There is the obligatory rose garden, but the Atlanta Botanical Garden’s effort is centered around old roses and shrub roses. I didn’t see a Hybrid Tea anywhere, but perhaps the Hybrid Tea roses are lurking out back. What was impressive was the Hydrangea collection. Bear in mind that you’re gonna need to visit in June to see the Hydrangeas in their glory, but the number of different varieties is mind-boggling.

The Fuqua Conservatory includes tons of plants growing under glass, including all manner of orchids, strange looking bamboo, and oddly, a bunch of quail seemed to have moved in. The conservatory also houses collections of plants of arid regions, as well. In addition to the Fuqua Conservatory, there are a number of ponds populating the Atlanta Botanical Garden, most of which contain an assortment of water lilies and lotus. The bog garden, full of pitcher plants and the like, is one of the best I have seen. Take a gander at what a healthy pitcher plant community looks like. Wow.

Thus, ends my report. I could go on and on, but at what purpose? If pitcher plants and hydrangea collections and old roses and bugs marching and big scary bamboo don’t whet your appetite, not much else will. (Oh, it costs twelve bucks for adults to get in).