Flowers, Flowers, and more Flowers

Before our class field trip, I had never been the Arboretum or even had any idea what an Arboretum was. Penn State offers a wide variety of small gardens and other nature affiliated areas throughout the campus, but the Arboretum blows them all out of the water. Being my first time visiting, I was in awe at the vast amount of beautiful flowers and plants that were in the garden. The great assortment and variety of different flowers made the garden more radiant than anything I have ever seen. The collection of vibrant flowers created a sea of color, and seemed to make the garden glow. I have never seen such brightly pigmented flowers, especially all grouped together in one place. It also shocked me to see that a good amount of the flowers were still bloomed and fully alive. With the way the weather has been, not to mention the hail storm we had a few weeks ago, it surprised me to find how well intact the garden seemed to still be in.

Whether I am a nature-lover is debatable. I appreciate certain aspects of nature such as the leaves changing in the fall,  how everything seems to glow when it snows, the animals that are always scurrying around, and many other things as well. However, there are also particular characteristics of nature that at times force me to stay inside. One aspect of nature that most people would agree they could live without, are the insects. Whether it's flies, ants, beetles, bees, or spiders...ESPECIALLY spiders, insects are the single reason why I am not a fully pro-nature type of guy. For instance, I thoroughly enjoyed the trip to the Arboretum. It was a very relaxing and soothing break from the stress of normal classes, and it put me at peace. I was at peace, however, until i got up close to take a picture, when all of a sudden 5 bees decided to try and assassinate me. This turned my serene and relaxing experience into a traumatic fight for my life. Once they left me alone, I was able to resume my relaxing walk through the garden, but was more alert of the potential threat of another honeybee attack.

Other than being attacked by rogue killer bees, I saw many interesting plants and flowers. For instance, I had never seen a sunflower that wasn't yellow. There were hundreds of sunflowers throughout the garden, but I came across a batch that were red instead of yellow, as shown above. I had no idea that sunflowers could ever look like this, and it reminded me of something out of a scary movie. I could see a batch of sunflowers like this growing in the backyard of a serial killer's house. Other than the demonic looking sunflowers, I saw a multitude of different flowers varying in size, shape, and color. A group of extremely bright orange flowers caught my eye right away, depicted in the picture below. These, plus the purple flowers included in the picture, were my favorite bunch in the entire garden. There were also a few other random items that were included in the Arboretum as well. These random items included gourds, lily pads, bamboo, and some sort of rock monument or structure. There also seemed to be construction going on at the time, so hopefully they keep adding to the garden to make it even bigger.

Although the Arboretum is a very beautiful and relaxing place, I would not consider going there again on my own. The Arboretum is a very beautiful and relaxing place, but I don't necessarily have the time to make another trip there by myself. However, this seems like the perfect and cheesy place to bring a date, or even my Mom when she decides to visit. In any case, if you go to PSU or ever decide to visit, I highly recommend visiting the Arboretum. It is something that everyone should experience at least once.