let it grow: the tremendous, triumphant return of the awesome max!!!

hi, i'm max. welcome back to me.

so we were staying in sarasota, and we had  a free afternoon with time to kill. my brothers wanted to swim in the pool, and nobody wanted to go out in the heat, so dad and i decided to go to the local botanical gardens. that was a good idea, because just after we left, a giant thunderstorm hit and liam and henry had to go rain tanning.

dad and i drove south to the marie selby botanical gardens, and we missed most of the storm. which was a good thing, because the botanical gardens were awesome. they were cool and very planty.

first we saw a bunch of pitcher plants. they trap flies and eat them, which is pretty cool.

there were lots of orchids in the first area, and this was my favorite. it looks like a pig's nose.

next was the bonsai area, which had a bunch of awesome bonsai trees. this one was my favorite.

the next area was the bamboo garden, which had lots of bamboo. we were walking though the garden, and we found a big gong next to a koi pond. dad picked up the gong hammer and pretended to swing it, but then he actually bashed the gong with the hammer. it was really loud, and we ran to the next part of the gardens.

this was a huge banyan tree, which is a kind of fig. there were a bunch of them, all with enormous trunks.

next was the desert area, which featured a bunch of cacti. 

after that was the fig grove. it was really cool and arched like a tunnel.

on a side note, there were lizards everywhere in florida. they were like the door frogs in plymouth, except they were around at all times of the day.

here is a cool view of sarasota bay. starring me!

a coconut palm!

this is a snowy egret hanging out in the mangrove area of the botanical gardens.

here are some date palms. 

at the end of the trail through the botanical garden, there was a secluded lagoon, and we saw a rare green heron hanging out. we were very close to it when we saw it, and dad got this quick picture before it flew off into the mangrove.

the botanical gardens were really cool, and i'm really happy that i was able to go there. this has been max, your intrepid botanical garden reporter.