Check your travel calendars quickly, Road Trips Gardeners. The Belgian Royal Greenhouses are open to the public only from April 15 to May 8, 2011, this year.

Designed by Alphonse Balat in 1873 for King Leopold II, this a complex of greenhouses complements the castle of Laeken. The monumental pavilions, glass cupolas and wide arcades that cross the site like covered streets, are more than just a greenhouse of exotic plants, but also an attempt to create the ideal palace of glass.

The present-day plant collection at the Greenhouses in Laeken still includes some of the plants from Leopold II’s original collection. The greenhouses include a collection of camellias.

(Photo by Wikipedia)