Dubuque Arboretum and Botanical Gardens

As promised in my last post, here are my adventures in the Dubuque Arboretum and Botanical Gardens.

We arrived at the gardens in the late morning and the sky was starting to cloud up, but neither one of us thought much of it. My husband and I headed down the path toward a pond. The pond was home to huge koi fish and a really vocal frog. People were feeding the fish, so we made our way around to the other side of the pond to stay out of the way and to capture some photos.

On our way back up the path, I saw a sign that said if I planned on selling images from the gardens they wanted me to get a permit. And because that’s exactly what I planned on doing, I did. Well, not five minutes after I got the permit it started to rain. We sought shelter by the building and waited it out. When the rain lightened up to a drizzle we went back out.

We walked through the rose garden and found our way to the desert section. We were both reminded of our trip to Arizona in 2016, and Utah last fall. The cacti are always a favorite of mine since we don’t get to see them in the wild unless we travel.

Once we left the desert, I saw a chipmunk. I spent way too much time following it around the gardens trying to photograph it and make a TikTok. My perseverance paid off, and I was able to get both.

When I finished playing with the wildlife we found the flowering plants. I wasn’t really expecting anything to be in bloom quite yet, so it was a pleasant surprise.

That was how we spent a few hours in the botanical gardens. Next week, I’ll have two (more) posts about Lake Superior.