a garden state: of mind that is, not new jersey

"as i wandered the forest,

the green leaves among,

i heard a wild flower singing a song..."

-william blake

it takes being away from home to really appreciate it, but it takes being back at home to get bored with it. as much as i love des moines, it is my home, i find that it can be boring at times. many times.

for eight months, i lived away from my home in sunny and strange los angeles county, californnia. des moines is a very nice place, but it's no california.

i miss a lot about california. beaches, high quality churros, san francisco and mountains to name a few. the thing i might miss the most about california is plants. yes, out of all the things i can miss in the giant state of california, the thing i miss the most is plants. palm trees, hibiscus, cacti and succulent gardens in people's front yards. on my school's campus was a beautiful rose garden and beds of cacti and succulents. iowa has plants, but not warm weather plants.

slightly bored of des moines and the cheesecake factory, my friends (and fellow plant lovers), ana, baby bec, cactus and i ventured to the greater des moines botanical garden in search of aesthetically pleasing instagram pictures that to be honest here made us look like we weren't in iowa. you, of course, need photographic evidence of you doing things other than sitting in your house or going to work. especially if those pictures make others believe that you don't live in cookie-cutter homes in midwestern america.

in the cookie-cutter midwestern world, the botanical garden provide an outlet for these kinds of pictures as well as photographic evidence of you actually having friends and leaving your home.

the botanical gardens. it's a little like a giant, humid golfball filled plants. there's the giant golfball filled with palm trees and cacti, the only place they could survive in iowa, but there are other gardens. an outdoor garden with a water feature and some wild flowers (iowa does have the most beautiful wild and prairie flowers) and a greenhouse room with more succulents, lattices covered in leaves and vines, potted plants and ferns (ferns are my favorite plant variety). a slice of exoticism and eden-like paradise in a dome surrounded by grey, concrete 1980s buildings.

the most peaceful place in all of des moines.

wandering the "green leaves among"

(photographic evidence of leaving the house and having friends)