Backyard Adventures Hidden Treasures

Expand your horticulture experience at the Central Valley Botanical Gardens year-round. Children and adults of all ages love to pursue the mystery of the pirate's hidden treasure, narrowing their search within tropical foliage, in-between lush green plants, colorful flowering bushes, and around sharp cactus. Looking for a challenge? Can you spy "a fire hydrant, a school bell, bananas, and an assortment of tikis"? Can you name the assortment of palm trees and leafy vegetation? Do you know their common or scientific names? It's not easy-- but visitors of all ages will have a whole lot of fun trying. With the pictures found in the Central Valley Botanical Gardens (below, or stop by for a real treasure hunt), award-winning photographic team, Sean and Lara are masters of the art form. Visitors search for subtly hidden objects on every beautifully composed and photographed page (there are three pictures to choose from). At first glance the setting seems like any other quaint residential village. Take a second look and discover that it's in fact a very realistic model, with giant palms filling the backyard, gargantuan statuary nestled among the boulders of the residential island, and hidden relics of a lost age. The result is stunning, a surrealistic adventure.

The "I Find" legacy continues with some of the pictures that require a lot of searching to find all of the objects mentioned in the rhyme. A future background note will explain how the sets for the treasure hunt were built and photographed.
Central Valley Public Library, CA
Copyright 2006 Backyard Adventures, Inc.

“I Find Challenge”

• Two Manhole Covers
• Three Water Meter Covers
• Which one is a king and which one is a queen?
• Which one is a cardboard or ponytail?
• How many types of granite can you find?
• Can you name the Phoenix species?
• Where is the (pot) basin hiding?
• Can you find the bird feeder?
• One rustic water pump
• Four tall tiki torches
• Three oak barrels
• How many copper lanterns are there?
• How many railroad ties can you find? How about rails?
• How many telephone poles can you find?
• Two small metal containers
• How many different palm trees can you find?
• How many prickly pears?
• Can you spot George and Martha?
• Fire pit or BBQ?
• Bananas?
• How many agaves?
• Can you find the aloe?
• One Happy Mask
• Eleven silver lanterns
• Dwarf or normal?
• Two palm tree tikis
• Two large cement tikis
• Two small cement tikis
• One school bell
• Four small tiki torches
• Eight half barrels
• Three oil drums
• How many umbrellas?
• A yellow fire hydrant
• A duck
• Three colored pots
• Can you find the hops?
• Two iron wheels
• Pool or pond?