I was just going to add Mendon's Nursery in Paradise on the list but then I saw that Kate had beat me to it. I live in Paradise and most of the plants I have planted have come from Mendons. I am very sorry Kate's first impression wasn't a very good one. There are many many people who work there and most are quite knowledgable. Maybe it was just the heat of the day. By the way, they have a great sale every October with all plants being 40% off. That is how I am able to afford all my landscaping.

I wouldn't call this list a top ten by any means. I have been to Chanticleer, Filoli, and the Atlanta Botanical Garden on the list. The first two are definitely must-see gardens. A true botanical garden is focused on botany which means it is educational but not necessarily beautiful. Botanical gardens are interesting to visit and often have beautiful sections but I don't usually find them beautiful overall. A beautiful garden is usually the result of passion and knowledge, horticultural skill and artistic gifts. Organizations or committees don't usually produce beautiful gardens--I'm being very opinionated here, I admit. Almost always, a single creative force creates a beautiful garden--one person, whether they have help or not, sometimes an owner with a designer and/or a head gardener. But a beautiful garden can be tiny and tended by one person. The glory of the art of gardening is that it is open to anyone with the love of it. I made a top-ten list once, from seeing hundreds of gardens in the US and Europe. Then I tossed it. Too many worthy candidates.

I'm glad to know you enjoyed the photos! Thanks so much for replying. Joey, the plant in question was in a recently planted pot so Linaria "Fairy Bouquet" it is. One internet source listed it as an alpine plant, so I'm guessing it's one, like pansy and snap dragon that will make it through San Antonio's comparitively mild winters.

Here are the photos I found of your resort. It looks like a wonderful place. When I went to Tulum, I caught a bus there and back, which stopped on the side of the road. I can't believe it's been 40 years since I was there! The ruins were open to the public, but I do not believe there was an entrance gate or anyone keeping track of who was there. I think they were still reconstructing some of the ruins back then. Anyway, my favorite Mayan ruins were Uxmal and Tikal, and I spent a lot more time in those places. Nice that you had a cenote to yourself. I went to what looked like a freshwater cenote in Chiapas (Misol-ha) that had a waterfall, but I was not the only person there. I'm still considering another trip to Cozumel, and I can fly there via Houston, although it would be just as cheap to go to Curaçao, and so I'm considering that also, but that would be off in the future, as we plan to go to Greece around the same time you will. It would be somewhat nostalgic to go back to Tulum, however. One place I did camp (several times) was Agua Azul, Chiapas, which is a Mexican national Park. We put up a tent on an island in the middle of the waterfall, and when the sun went down, all we had was starlight. The last time I went there was in 1981, and it was already beginning to change a bit, as there was a building that had electricity, which was not there when I had visited before. It's very close to Palenque, and I got off the bus to walk down to the park, as there were no buses going there when I visited. I hitchhiked down one time and got a ride with a guy that I had gone to high school and graduated with! Normally I never run into anyone I know when traveling, and so that was the only time.