New Orleans Day 2

Today was more or less a play day. I set up my native plant exhibit, registered for the convention and shopped with like-minded friends. We walked across the street to the Canal Place Mall. I was surprised to discover that the Williams-Sonoma and Pottery Barn stores were no longer there. Later, driving down Magazine Street, there were more shops closed or going out of business. Signs of the recent recession, I suppose. There is quite a bit of residential property for sale in the French Quarter and on and around Magazine Street. This afternoon I went to Bridge City to a nursery I had heard about as having more variety of plants than most. It was interesting, but I could tell they had sold quite a bit of plant material recently. This was confirmed when I ran into someone at the hotel that told me the nurseries around here were having a very good spring because so many people had lost plants when the temperature dropped to 19 in February. Everyone had rushed out and bought plants as soon as possible to replace the dead stuff. He told me of another nursery I would probably like that is a little closer on the west bank in Marrero that I will try to sneak off to sometime tomorrow. I have a breakfast meeting, lunch meeting, and need to be able to raise my hand at the end of the meeting in between. Last thing of the day is high tea at the Windsor Court behind this Double Tree. This evening, we donned our sashes and decorated umbrellas and second lined around the hotel ball room. Afterwards a group of us headed across Canal Street for dinner at Morton's Steak House. For those who are interested, I had the jumbo scallops wrapped in bacon with apricot chutney. We shared a souffle for dessert that was fabulous. No pictures today, but I did manage to get the link on yesterday's post for the pictures I took on the tour.

New Orleans

I am in New Orleans for the Louisiana Garden Club Federation state convention this week. I spent today on the pre-convention tour. We boarded buses at the New Orleans Botanical Garden in City Park this morning and toured three gardens in the garden district. Each home had the landscape architect that did the grounds on hand to tell us all about it. All three were magnificent homes, but I only found one of the gardens to be a little interesting. We had lunch on the grounds at Longue Vue Gardens, and walked around the gardens there. I was able to get lots of Louisiana Iris pictures. I needed some those because all my pictures are from years ago and are slides. I was glad to get some digital pictures of one of the most spectacular Louisiana native flowers. We were bussed back to the botanical gardens for tours there, and I got some more pictures of different things. It is amazing how both gardens have recovered from Hurricane Katrina, both the wind and the flooding. However, things are able to grow year-round down here, so it grows twice as fast.

I bailed out before the bitter end and came back to the hotel and collapsed for a little while. Later I went out to eat with friends at Commander's Palace. I had never eaten there before. I had Crawfish and Tasso Mac Choux and Ponchatoula Strawberry Shortcake. It was all good!

Here is a link to pictures I took today. Pardon the iris enthusiasm.

New Orleans