Garden Party

CRM - This past week, our class took a field trip to Rome. It was so fun! Our time there was jam packed with things to do and places to see, and I loved every second of it.

One of my favorite places that we visited was the Vatican garden. I had been to the Vatican many years before, but I don’t remember ever touring the garden. I think I would have remembered such beautiful landscaping and plants! I wish we had more places like that in Texas.

Every color in the Vatican garden was so bright. I wanted to take pictures of everything I saw. My favorite feature of the garden was a crest that they had made out of different colors of flowers. It was so intricate and perfect and I still have no idea how they can shape plants to form something like that.

My other favorite feature was the rose garden. I wish we could have gotten to walk through it in the evening because it was scorching hot in the afternoon. But the rose garden had a big fountain in the middle of it and the water was ice cold. I took off my shoes and stuck my feet in the fountain, as well as washed my face with its brisk water. Instantly, I was comforted and refreshed. 

The Vatican garden wasn’t the only garden we visited in Rome. It wasn’t mandatory, but Dr. Leo took me and a few of my classmates to some botanical gardens during our free time one day.  I LOVED THE BOTANICAL GARDENS. Because I went with many horticulture majors, it was so fun to be able to walk around and them point out different things about different plants. I learned lots of fun facts that I had never even heard of before! For example, my friend Keith taught me that there was a certain cactus that you could break open and use the fibers inside as string if you ever needed to stitch something up. Also, there was another cactus that produced bright purple fruit that you can eat. Keith picked it off, carved off its outer layer of skin, and I was amazed to see something that looked kind of like the inside of a plum. It tasted like a plum too! I really enjoyed getting to learn a lot of new things there about horticulture.