Tag Archives: Como Park Conservatory

December 29, 2022 · 9:02 am

A winter visit to the conservatory

It’s one of my favorite things to do during winter! We haven’t been to the conservatory since before everything shut down in early 2020. And naturally, things are different now. Advance reservations are required. Oh wait, now I remember that we made reservations at one point in the last almost 3 years. But something came up and we weren’t able to make it. You can make reservations the day of, which is what I did. There were plenty of openings throughout the day about 3 hours prior to opening.

We’re over our 10 plus days of deep freeze and I thought it would be nice to visit the conservatory while it’s relatively nice. Highs are in the 30s now which feels absolutely BALMY compared to what we’ve had since before Christmas. So I ditched the winter coat because I didn’t want to be carrying it around with me. I wore a bulky sweatshirt with my down vest which was nearly perfect. Hubby also wore his vest. It was a tad chilly between the car and the building but we did okay!

We used to enter at the doors to the conservatory where you used to be able to hang your coat. Those days are gone, at least for now while they require reservations. You now enter through the Visitors Center where they scan your bar code for your time slot. And because we entered at a different spot than what used to be normal, our first room was the fern room.

We then wandered around to the different areas of the conservatory. It’s so warm and tropical in there and it smells divine! You feel transported to the tropics in the middle of winter. Ah…….

Next up: the sunken gardens. It was beautiful but neither of us expected it to be all white. The room was also filled with the aroma of one of those flowers, probably those smaller blooms on long stems. I believe they are paperwhites.

Various photos from other rooms.

We ended at the Tropical Encounters Exhibit where many beautiful birds were flying around. There is also a huge fish tank with many varieties to peruse and other containers with snakes, frogs and a tarantula! At the end of this exhibit is a sloth. He tries to camouflage himself but I found him!!! And he moved a little bit while we stood there.

If you’re in the twin cities area, do pay a visit to the conservatory. It’s such a nice break from winter!! There is also a zoo but that is mostly outdoors and we didn’t venture over there. But many kids with their parents were checking it out. Here’s a link to their website in case anybody is interested.

I’m working on my “year in photos” for 2022 so stay tuned for that post coming soon!

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Filed under Minnesota, Travel

Tagged as Como Park Conservatory, Marjorie McNeely Conservatory, photography, travel

February 1, 2015 · 1:57 pm

Winter visit to the conservatory 2015

Each winter we try to make at least one trip to our beloved conservatory that is just down the street a piece. It’s the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory, formerly known as the Como Conservatory and it’s located in Como Park in St. Paul, MN. If you’d like to checkout my posts from the last two years’ visits, you can find them here and here.

This year’s visit was perfectly timed in that the temp was 12 when we left the house. It’s a bit windy today so the wind that blew in our faces as we ran to the entrance probably made it feel like 5. BRRRR!!! We felt much better in the warmth of the conservatory and then waited a few minutes for our glasses to defog.

As usual, we saw many beautiful flowers and plants. I also see something new each time I visit. For example, I had never seen the “hairy” bark of a palm tree before. There’s a photo of it in the mix below. I hope you’ll enjoy today’s visit with me while I show you what I saw.

We started in the sunken garden where it’s already spring.

a popular wedding spot

amaryllis

rhododendrun

some kind of lily?

bleeding hearts – will be a few months before we see these in our garden

another beautiful lily

fox glove

fox glove close-up

No visit is complete without seeing the fern room.

Then of course there are the lovely orchids that are found throughout the different rooms. They are so beautiful. Which is your favorite orchid?

an orchid in the conservatory at Como Park

We always enjoy the bonsai room:

And then a mish mosh of other photos:

beautiful flowers

the sloth is just hangin’ out today

hairy palm tree bark?

interesting blooms

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Filed under Minnesota

Tagged as Como Conservatory, Como Park Conservatory, conservatory, ferns, flower photos, flowers, Marjorie McNeely Conservatory, photography, photos of flowers, plants

February 2, 2014 · 5:00 pm

Marjorie McNeely Conservatory – Como Park, St. Paul, MN

One of our favorite activities during the winter months is to visit the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory in Como Park. It’s a ten minute drive from our house and provides a nice refuge from the frigid weather. And boy howdy, have we ever had frigid weather this year! Not to mention the piles of snow we’ve accumulated. Here’s a good view of that snow with the conservatory in the background:

piles of snow

approaching the conservatory

I don’t think anyone’s going to be sitting on this bench any time soon :)

don’t let that bright blue sky deceive you – it was about zero degrees

This year I focused more on the blooms. Last year I documented many of the plants that are contained within the conservatory. If you’re interested, check out that post by clicking here. We managed to strike it rich in terms of seeing beautiful orchids. The winter carnival is happening right now and there was an orchid contest and the winners were displayed in one of the rooms. I also noticed that there were many more orchids blooming this year than last year. Last year we visited the equivalent of about 3 weeks ago. What a difference 3 weeks makes!

orchid at the conservatory

I did snap some photos of lovely greenery too:

A collection of some other things blooming:

The sunken gardens where many couples get married:

And here’s a photo from hubby’s camera, the photographer at work ;)

This was quite the scene with the sloth named Chloe and the lone sun bittern. There was a volunteer who just told us how the bittern loves to torment the sloth to gain control of this tree. Another volunteer watched with us while the sloth moved away from the bittern. He said he’d never seen that sloth move so fast! It seem the bittern won this round:

I’m thinking the bonsai room was either closed last year or we missed it. There’s a nice display of a few bonsai plants but it wasn’t a good day to take photos in there. It was too bright. But I did get one of an olive tree and then a view of the room: