A visit to the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory Winter Flower Show

It was cold again today. Cold's expected, but never completely welcome. It's nearly the end of the year and maybe I should be doing a "best of" list or something, but instead, to fight off the cabin fever December blues, NCW and I went in search of flowers. The conservatory at Como Park has been pictured here often enough that it seemed like a good place to sum up a very busy year. And the Christmas poinsettia show is still in residence (until January 4), colorful leaves on display. The sunken garden was filled with mainly poinsettias and a lot of other people who were looking for color and perhaps some humidity. The sun through the glass ceiling was welcome.

The pink poinsettias photograph well. The reds are quite dramatic in person but don't translate that well to digital photography - the reds seem to cause the detail to get lost. These pinks were especially nice ones. The process of getting the leaves to be in full color around Christmas, I guess, is complicated, but the Como gardeners seem to have the knowhow.

When you walk through the conservatory there are lots of tropical plants and quite a few statues. This is one of my favorites - St Francis of Assisi looking out over a small pool and surrounded by green growth.

It was cold outside, about 2º when this photo was taken outside Marjorie McNeely Conservatory at Como Park. The snow woman is NCW wrapped up against the chill.

I didn't think that I'd get to 100 posts on the blog this year, but this is number 100. It's the fewest posts of the years I've been blogging. This is my eighth year beginning in 2007. The BEDFAMM marathon got me into range to make the goal this year. And with a day to spare, one in hand the Brits might say, I'm there.