Flowers have always held a special place in my Heart.

They have always had the ability to lift my Spirits and bring Joy into my World.

A garden filled with vegetables is very practical, but whenever I planted a vegetable garden, there also had to be flowers. And yes, I enjoy the blossoms of squash, beans, peas or other vegetable plants, knowing they would bear edible items after the flowers faded away. Still, a blooming Iris or Peony makes my heart sing even louder than those blossoms.

When I travel to visit my family in Oregon, I would always walk my parent’s neighborhood seeking out the flowers that were blooming in Albany, that were not found in Colorado. I loved my spring time visits the best, but even in Fall, there were more flowers blooming in Oregon than in Colorado.

And in my hikes around Colorado, when we go to the different altitudes, flowers can be found blooming early in the Spring and later in the Summer. Sometimes the same type of flower would be blooming weeks later at a higher altitude that have finished blooming on other lower trails. Always a treasure hunt for flowering beauty on my hikes.

“Flowers have spoken to me more than I can tell in written words. They are the hieroglyphics of angels, loved by all men for the beauty of the character, though few decipher even fragments of their meaning.” – Lydia M. Child

So walking into the Orchid room at the Denver Botanical Gardens I got lost in their beauty and the wonder of their diversity.

Walking in the Orchid hall, nothing else seemed more important than just taking in their innocent beauty.

And the white ones all had just a touch of color, and some different faces, but were so pure in color, their beauty was breathtaking.

Life’s challenges melted away from my mind, as they often do when I hike or find myself surrounded by flowers on a hike. The orchid hallway was filled with glorious blooms, each one a bit different from the other. It was very easy to get lost in this exotic world so different from my arid Colorado landscape. Transported to a faraway place where time didn’t matter.

“Even though the world is filled with confusion
when I gaze at one orchid
I can forget all my problems.”
– Song Sunam

Though I did find myself experimenting with the Macro setting on my camera to capture their beauty in close ups. At times when zeroing in on a blossom, I got lost in the intricacy of the plant itself. The different colors contrasting within on bloom was fascinating.

Time seemed to stand still as I contemplated these magical flowers.