Wegerzyn Gardens

Thursday evening we discovered that our motor home had no electricity.  We had planned to leave Dayton the next day, that did not happen.   We took our home into a repair shop on Friday and learned that the transfer switch and surge protector needed replacing.  The parts needed to be ordered and would not come in until Tuesday.  That meant we needed to move in with our niece Laura until Tuesday.  She was happy to accommodate us and hanging out with them meant that John could do a few more repair jobs around their house.  Saturday all of us went to the Fairborn Sweet Corn Festival.  Wow, that corn was good eating!   Over both days of the week-end there was some sort of live music going on continually; from high school marching bands, to a variety of local bands, square dancing and even belly dancing.  On Sunday we returned to the fair just to hear McCoy Grass, a bluegrass band.  One of their members has played at the Grand Ole Opry.  The band sure produced some wonderful toe-tapping music!

From the festival John and I headed out to visit another one of the Five Rivers MetroParks, the Wegerzyn Gardens.  Just as we have discovered that every history museum is different, we can also say the same for botanical gardens.  Currently the Wegerzyn Gardens is displaying a sculpture done by Patrick Dougherty.  His art work, made of willow tree saplings, is called "A Wiggle in its Walk".  The mound of sticks depicts a serpent weaving its way through the gardens.  It is possible to walk through the art work.  Part of the serpent can be seen below.  Unfortunately only an aerial view would make it possible to see the whole creature.

The Children's Discovery Garden is quite unique with a limestone grotto and waterfall, a prairie and wetlands.  The pond in that area has lily pads which are currently blooming.

The park also has formal English, Federal and Victorian gardens.  A riparian forest was enjoyable to walk through, unfortunately at this time of the year it is inhabited by many mosquitoes.  It usually gets flooded about once a year by the nearby Stillwater River.  To my chagrin many of the plants in the park are not labeled.  However, the witch hazel  has a tag on it.  An interpretive sign near it notes that on the grounds there are 70 varieties of the plant, each one bearing scented and colorful blooms in the spring and fall.  The plants common name references the fact that its branches make excellent divining rods for water witching.  The only witch hazel plant I saw looked rather sad with its dry-appearing leaves.   I won't bother posting a picture of it, but will instead finish this post with one of the garden's prettier sights, of which there are many.