Roadtripping...part 1: New Jersey

In the last couple of weeks we (or I) have made some road trips to drop and pick up kids in Binghamton, New York State (4.5 hours away), go to a conference in Providence, Rhode Island, or visit great little places here in New Jersey.  The photos from these trips are on my Flickr photostream, but here are some highlights:


Willowwood Arboretum is a public park in New Jersey, an old estate founded by two gardening brothers in the early 1900s. They and their hired gardener filled their large property with cultivated plants, including many Asian ones that had never before been cultivated in North America. It is a gorgeous place, with formal and informal gardens as well as woods, meadows, and whimsical and Japanese sculptures. And it is free! you can tell they have the whole property deer-fenced, just look at those tall flowers.  In my garden those plants would be chewed off 20 cm from the ground. We walked from Willowwood to the neighboring estate Bamboo Brook which has just been restored. It is a gorgeous little mansion on a hill with ponds, streams, terraces, and rock walls, surrounded by tall trees in the forest. Of course the day we were here it started to rain for the first time in 6 weeks, so I don't have many photos, but you can see some here.

(The red flower is a funky begonia.)

On the way to Willowwood I found this 'homemade' road sign - what do you think, is it a warning for attacking T's?