Frolicking in the Atlanta Botanical Gardens

Hanging around kids is good for the imagination. They think of things you haven't thought of in a million years, and before you know it, you're holding a conversation like this:

And so these two cuties are the reason that my last trip to Atlanta Botanical Gardens was spent with nonstop giggles.

I joined my best friend Jenelle and her niece and nephew to explore the Imaginary Worlds exhibit.

This exhibit inserts different kinds of plants into metal frames which are shaped like animals - frogs, gorillas, cobras, butterflies, and more - to create beautiful, larger-than-life sculptures. You'll find these sculptures located in areas all throughout the garden.

In addition to their size, the beauty lies in the way the different plants work together to convey the imagery - plant textures, color, length, relative fluffiness (technical term), and more help create features like scales or fur or spikes, or even horns. Pretty neat.

If you're curious how these plant sculptures were made, rest your peepers on this 50 second video:

On our visit, we pretty much roamed around at our leisure, so this post is not exhaustive of all the cool sculptures you see in the video. But my blogger friend at wanderlust Atlanta did a great job sharing more about the exhibit, so check his post out.

Alright, let's play!

One thing I'm super excited to point out is that almost every picture in this post was taken by the kids! Photographers in the making. They loved learning about the Nikon and finding photo opportunities.

The only one who didn't try his hand at photography was this little lima bean. He didn't stay with us very long because nap time was calling.

But we did get to enjoy the orangutans!

Made out of plants! What will they think of next?

When you go, be sure to check out Earth Goddess; at 25-feet-tall, she's the largest sculpture there. We didn't see her, prob because we were too busy doing cartwheels, etc.

Aaaand we stumbled upon a petting zoo. Cuteness overload.