Valentine's Day 2018: Orchids & Bonsai

Dear Husband and I celebrated Valentine's Day this year by taking ourselves out to the Phipps Botanical Garden for their Bonsai and Orchid Display. The displays are always artful and even interesting to look at with the nighttime lighting (see our first visit there for Halloween), but it can make photographing them a challenge. For instance, a kind stranger took the shot of us to the left, but it is a little blurry, and with the odd shadows, I decided it looked better in black and white ("Vogue" filter on Google Photos). The next few photographs demonstrate the variety of the plants and artwork, from the stunning orchids "exploding" like fireworks from the hanging balls to our favorite little glowing men in the orchid and bromeliad room, an entire pyramid of orchids and the luscious colors of the plants themselves.

 

The central room of the conservatory always gets a special diorama, whether a throwback Pittsburgh railroad scene or a haunted pirate scene. If you look closely, you can see the pirate captain making his get away while a sea monster engulfs his ship! This is why we continue coming back season after season.

The theme of the exhibition was a good one for Valentine's Day: both orchids and bonsai take a lot of patience to nurture, just like relationships: a little water, a little trimming, the right amount of sun. I'd like to think that over time, DH and I have grown together, molding ourselves into better versions of us as individuals, and coming together as a couple to make something more beautiful. But never static. We have to keep working on "us," whether it's silly little texts during a long day apart, running errands together as an excuse to spend a little more time together, or setting up dates like this to look forward to and to reflect on afterward. (Sometimes even months later, as I went through old photos!)