Botanic Gardens

Some people go shopping on their travels, everywhere I go, it is Botanical Gardens.  Those  in Washington DC are exceptional.  There's a huge greenhouse building with plants well set out and well labelled, thank you.  The plants are arranged properly  and every plant is a winner, so that  the overall effect is pleasing to the eye.  They have themed rooms. Desert, Mediterranean,  tropical food plants and medicinal plants etc.  My favourite  are those arranged in big blue pots. You know me, I  am a sucker for a blue ceramic pot.. It is very inspiring

And I love cinnamon

Beautifully proportioned garden

Tropical plants, coconut, coffee, vanilla 

Across the road is Bartholdi Gardens.  This is a triangular city block which is a Sustainable  Garden.  They capture and store all the rain water in a soil-soaker system so that it doesn't enter the drain. In the modern redesign, they've repurposed the concrete into channelling, they've made elegant stone wall out of paving found on site and they had to take down oak trees so they made them into furniture, i.e. lovely table and chairs to sit in, throughout the garden.  The guide said it was a model that people can learn from and to take these ideas home to their own garden. 
In Australia  we call it Permaculture -  permanent agriculture.

Botanical Gardens Washington DC  -These Bartholdi Gardens are sustainable.