Hershey Gardens

After the zoo and a great lunch (I highly recommend The Chocolate Ave. Grill) we dropped Chris off to meet friends at Hershey Park. Then, on a whim decided to see what the sign for "Hershey Gardens" was all about. OH. MY. GOSH. I've got to follow whims much more often. It was amazing. I haven't enjoyed myself so much in a LONG time. The beauty of creation was overwhelming and magnified by the pure joy of watching Ella's eyes light up over and over in wonder at all we saw. It was the perfect place for me and for Ella, a little girl who has been saying, since she could put the sentence to together "flowers make me happy!"


Just to give you an idea, this is the rose garden we walked into when we entered the garden. We spent 30 minutes here because I thought this had to be all there was. It smelled amazing and we had so much fun reading all the names of the different colors of roses. Then, I discovered this garden was about 1/8 of the whole place! Have I said "amazing" enough??

Hydrangeas are my favorite flower which Ella knows so she was thrilled to point them out all over the gardens. She also said she wants to have them in her wedding like I did :-) I told her she has to get married at Hershey Gardens. I'm not kidding.

All of the gardens had themes (there were probably 20 different ones) The Children's Garden was awesome!!!

A big part of the children's garden was plants that began with each letter of the alphabet which Ella loved.

My favorite part of the Children's Garden was the "secret garden." You go down some steps into a lush, wooded area with a pond, a stone bridge and then this little table and chairs hiddwn in the trees. It felt magical!

On our way through the "Coniferous Trees Garden" to the "Ornamental Grasses Garden." We also spent time in the Herb Gardens which smelled great!

The Spa Garden had all kinds of spa-worthy herbs and plants and some of them growing in this bathtub!

This tree was so cool...

this is what the "walls" looked like from inside...

and this is what it looked like if you look up! Ella asked if we could please live there.

The red-orange-yellow rows of the Rainbow Garden where each row was a bunch of color-coordinated plants and flowers.

There were so many beautiful little gazebos and benches under trees and nooks and crannies that seemed perfect for memorable moments...


If you look closely you'll see a bee in this rose. Ella was so excited to tell me about how it was getting pollen to go make honey!

My beautiful little girl enjoying the flowers! Stay tuned for the Butterfly House...