Some flowers live forever - just like love

The cherry blossoms of my last letter bloomed and faded, ephemeral like a fleeting romance. Orchids last a lifetime, like true love.

And a profusion of orchids live in the U. S. Botanic Garden

As one of the earliest buildings on the National Mall, our country’s Botanic Garden captures the expanding intellectual and scientific spirit of the early American republic. As a plant museum, the Garden set the stage for all of the museums to follow. Learn more history here.

From a charming Victorian Conservatory opened in 1850, the Garden expanded dramatically, and then was relocated and rebuilt in the 1930s. Congress moved it to make room for the Grant memorial and his reflecting pool that sit at the foot of the Capitol today. As though Grant is reporting to President Lincoln at the Mall's other end. The architects loved the symmetry that made the Civil War a defining event of the Mall.

But romantic women like my heroine Estela in Love on the Mall hated that the Grant memorial cut one last swath of the trees at the foot of the Capitol.

Before there was a garden, there was exploration…

The history of the Garden’s collections begins with the U.S. Exploring Expedition of 1838-42. Six ships sailed 87,000 miles around the world to bring home 60,000 plant and bird specimens, seeds from over 600 species of plants, and over 250 live plants. Mappers and “scientifics” rendered the world they found – including identifying Antarctica as a continent. Learn more here.

Orchids make love bloom on the Mall!

The Botanic Garden plays a critical role in my book, as a romantic setting when my couple first meet, and then twelve years later where they meet again. The Garden also supports a thematic focus on orchids, my metaphor for love. Indeed, read the book and learn about the “dueling orchids” that pit our hero, Nikos, against the effete Frenchman Laurent.

You must read the book to learn who wins the day with Estela!