Brookside Gardens - August 2012

Brookside Gardens in August - the plants are hanging on in the heat, making seed pods. There are quite a few with lots of buds brought on by the recent rains and the coming reduction in temperatures. The textures and shapes that I focused on during my walk included: 

• Fan-like gingko leaves
• Pleats of the yellow petals behind a fuzzy bee
• Folds of a hibiscus petal just opening
• Feathery papyrus
• Curved path through the rose garden and purple crepe myrtle
• Overlapping of petals of an old rose…the tight furl of a bud
• Compartments of a lotus pod
• The compactness of a passion flower bud
• The ripples behind two ducks

Gingko leaves

Bee

Hibiscus petal

Papyrus

Rose garden path

Old Rose

Lotus pod

Passion flower bud

Ducks

Insects of Summer 2012

The best of the insect photos this summer are in the slide show below. Most are serendipity shots - being in the right place at the right time to photograph: 

• A praying mantis perched on the headlight of my husband’s car
• A butterfly, moth or bee resting for a few seconds   
• A cool enough morning that the dragonflies stayed in one place a little longer than usual
• A cicada killer that kept returned again and again to the same bush to alight before making the flight pattern around the yard again

Serendipity at the Grocery Store - A Sunflower

My grocery store seems to have a new display of plants just outside the door almost every week. This week it was pots of sunflowers and I couldn’t resist.

There is one bloom on the plan - and a lot of potential with at least 3 buds. I’ll plant it out in the garden after a few weeks and hope it produces seed that will sprout next year so I’ll have many sunflowers next year. The goldfinches may visit the garden to enjoy the seeds as well.

Now that I have it home it is still a day brightener - just the thing for a humid August day in Maryland. Enjoy the slideshow below!

Morning Walk in Colorado

Before I adjusted from Eastern to Mountain time on a recent trip to Breckenridge, Colorado - I took an early morning walk  and took pictures of flowers growing around the resort - some with water droplets left over from the shower the night before. Hope you enjoy the slideshow below!

Around our (Maryland) Yard in August 2012

I waited until I thought the dew would be dry from the grass - but misjudged it. At 9 AM, the grass was still very wet and I had to take my flip flops off to make it back up the slight incline of our back yard!

August is a month to start thinking about drying mint and basil. Both are blooming and growing profusely right now. Maybe I can get several harvests from the plants this month. I’ll do a later post on my technique for drying herbs.

Dahlias are the showy flowers in my flower beds this month. Other things are blooming too but somehow the dahlias always stand out above everything else.

I planted a sweet potato under the dahlias (I had one that sprouted before I could bake it) but the deer found it….it’s recovering but may not have enough time to actually grow sweet potatoes.

There are at least three different kinds of fungi in the back yard. The big bulky ones at the top of the picture collection below are the same ones growing on an oak stump from the ‘yard’ posting last month (and I posted about them at mid-month as well) - they’ve weathered from white curves to structures with rings and almost a clay like color. Two puff balls are a little further down on the mulch from where the oak stump is rotting. Then there are the very delicate mushrooms that come up in the grass. There always seem to be one or two in the back yard.

Previous Months: July 2012, June 2012, May 2012, April 2012, March 2012, January 2012 

Photography experiments

Today’s blog posting shares some results from some recent photography experiments.

The first one is quite simple - some hydrangea leaves photographed on a white kitchen counter top with shadows from natural light from the window on the left. The way the shadows accentuate the shapes of the leaves and the intersection of the shadows of the middle and right leaf intrigue me the most about the image.

The next photograph is of a hydrangea flower - taken with natural light using an old television stand for the black background. It turned out that it provided a very flat black even if it did make for a rather awkward position to be photographing (i.e. essentially lying on the floor). 

I did an earlier post on Blue Tulip Depression Glass. This is a photograph of a salad plate from the set photographed on a drying rack covered in deep red tissue with a small halogen light source shining from below.  

The image to the right is a gladiola photographed lying on a black deskpad using light from a halogen lamp. The flower looked pinker with natural light but I liked the color shift caused by the difference in light.

This is probably my favorite picture of the group. The swirls and puckers are gladiola petals with a background of black felt taken with natural light. To me, it is easy to imagine that they are swirls of fabric - around dancers just off the frame.

Brookside Gardens Reflections - July 2012

On a cloudy day at Brookside Gardens - after a rain - there were plenty of summer reflections.

The reflections of the treetop canopy by water filling the depression in a boulder marking a path 

Cattails and thick vegetation along the edge of the pond reflected in the water

And the panorama of the Japanese Teahouse and hill behind reflected in the pond as some Canadian geese swim into view.

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 28, 2012

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles I read this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article:

Colorful Science Sheds Light On Solar Heating - visualization from the Solar Dynamics Observatory. There is a short video to explain how they do the color coding.

You May Never Need to Clean Your Car Again, Thanks to New Coating Technology - estimated 6-8 years to production. If it works - it will be used on many more things that cars

Radiant creatures and their fluorescent proteins - DayGlo color from living organisms. Also take a look at the slideshow.

Insider Tips From The Grand Teton National Park Foundation - This is a recent post about Grand Teton but the site includes posts on all the parks…check it out as you plan a visit to one of them

Mad About Moths – National Moth Week! - Butterflies tend to capture more attention….but moths are interesting too!

A California jail offers a glimpse of the economic and environmental benefits of locally generated energy - microgrids already are cost effective in some parts of the country particularly for organizations that require very reliable power (hospitals, prisons, data centers, etc.) and their cost is coming down

Chris Helzer - Prairie ecologist and photographer - video that shares photos from the prairie; there’s a lot there to see

The Devil’s Pool - The swimming hole at the top of Victoria Falls (video)

Massive Ice Melt In Greenland - 97% of the Greenland ice sheet has surface melting. Last time it occurred was in 1889 based on ice cores. It went from 40% to 97% in 4 days!

Treatise on Landscape Painting in Water-colours - by David Cox and C. Geoffrey Holme and published in 1922. The images are not in color but they are detailed and still evoke stories of place. The link above is directly to the beginning of the image section in the ‘read online’ double page format that I prefer for books like this; the image below is what that format looks like and the green arrows show how to ‘page forward’ . To view the book in a different format, start with the main entry for the book on the Internet Archive here.

Magnolia at Brookside Gardens

Earlier this month I posted some photographs of Southern Magnolias from Texas, Arkansas, and Tennessee. The photographs in the slide show below are all from one tree in Brookside Gardens in Maryland taken in the early morning of 7/20 after a good soaking rain the night before. The sign at the base of the tree (picture at right) said that is was a Magnolia virginiana var. Pumila or a Dwarf Sweet Bay. This one tree had all stages of the bloom - from bud to the bright red seeds popping out of the pod.   

Enjoy!

Brookside Gardens Lotus Blossom - July 2012

On Friday (7/20/2012) when we made our trip to Brookside Gardens - the only Lotus blossom was facing into some leaves and too far away to photograph…but there were buds.

On Sunday (7/22/2012) when we returned - after almost 24 straight hours of rain - one of the buds had opened fully. I took a number of pictures and noticed that there seemed to be a lot of bees coming and going from the flower.

The only way to see inside the flower was to reach as far as I could and point the camera into the flower from above (in other words - taking the picture without being able to see the screen of the camera at all). The best one is below. It clearly shows that bees love lotus flowers! I think there are 6 bees visible!

Brookside Gardens Cloudy Day - July 2012

Brookside Gardens - high humidity relieved a bit with an occasional breeze - was between rain showers. We were there first thing in the morning before the heat of the day became overwhelming and the water droplets dried. The gardens were lush with greenery even though there was still some visible damage from the storm in early July and the more recent rains: freshly cut marks on some trees where limbs had broken, trampled high grass and buds nibbled by deer that got in when part of the fence was down, mulch washed to the side of paths leaving mud behind. I particularly liked the papyrus in pots in one of the pools and the garden with a low wall looking toward the wisteria arbor and tall trees beyond.

The slide show below includes my favorites of the closer study pictures: flowers with water droplets and shiny from overall moisture, a small stem of leaves blown into a pine, water droplets on a large leaf, and a classical looking tree trunk.

Mushrooms on an Oak Stump

One of the outdoor discoveries from our days without electricity was some mushrooms growing on the stump of an oak tree our neighbor cut down several years ago. I decided to take some pictures of them for as long as they lasted. On July 1st they looked creamy white at the margins. Notice the brown filament in the center of the one on the left; that will be a way to orient yourself in the upcoming pictures.

On 7/7, the white had flattened and enlarged. There were rings that began to appear.

On 7/11, the rings had become even more apparent and the rusty gold color was quite appealing. I also took another picture to show how they were oriented on the stump.

Finally, this morning - on 7/19, the mushrooms have browned more with time and the pelting of rain yesterday afternoon. They are looking a little battered at this point. I'll do a follow up post to document what happens to them in upcoming weeks.

Summer Living

July is the middle of summer. The top 10 things I like in summer are: 

1. Watermelon
2. Cherries
3. Grilled corn on the cob
4. Gardening on the deck - basil, sweet potato, stevia, mint, parsley, rosemary
5. Walks around Brookside Gardens
6. Reading a good book in the cool indoors on a hot afternoon
7. Going barefoot
8. Waking up at dawn
9. Meeting a longtime friend for lunch
10. Photographing flowers

Many of these depend upon being about to stay comfortable even when it is very hot. By July - we all have implemented strategies to stay cool. Here are a few of mine (over and above being in an air conditioned house/building): 

• Do any outdoor activity as early in the day as possible. I like to get out and about and done by 9. Yes - this means getting up at dawn or maybe a little before. Being a morning person is quite an advantage in the summer.
• Drink plenty and lots of cold drinks. Lemon water with chia seeds (almost always my first breakfast), herbal tea, and smoothies made with frozen fruit.
• Close drapes and blinds to keep the sun from shining into a room. Outside light is wonderful but there is a down side if the sun is actually shining through the glass - wonderful as it may be in winter, it is thwarting the air conditioning in the summer.
• Minimize heat sources such as lamps and computers. Even relatively cool fluorescent bulbs put out some heat. Put the computer into sleep mode when not in use and turn off printers and other equipment except when they are needed.
• Cook on the grill rather than using an indoor broiler or skillet. If you do cook indoors, minimize the heat added to the kitchen:
  • Select foods with minimal cook time like stir fry
  • Use the microwave to heat veggies
  • Use a crock pot rather than the stove top to make soup or chili
• Turn off the dry cycle of the dishwasher and run the dishwasher at a time when you will not be in the kitchen (maybe as you are on your way to bed if it isn’t too noisy) 

So - the overarching strategy is to stay indoors during the hottest part of the day and be conscious of actions that minimize what the air conditioning has to overcome. With these strategies in place - I can enjoy all my top 10 activities…and more! 

Summer Lotus

Over the past month, I’ve seen lotus plants in two separate gardens and photographed them. The pink ones were in the Dallas Arboretum (with the Chihuly glass) and the white ones were in Brookside Gardens in Montgomery County Maryland.

I like the big leaves of the lotus. They 

• Are almost circular.
• Curve into a shallow bowl to capture a pool of water in their centers when it rains.
• Unfurl like lily pads, starting out in two curls toward the center.
• Are veined from the center outward.
• Flutter gently in the breeze on their long stalks that are anchored in muddy shallow water.
• Have gentle waves around their edges. 

Enjoy the lotus slideshow below!

Southern Magnolia

As I made my way through Texas, Arkansas and Tennessee a few weeks ago - I decided to take lots of pictures of Southern Magnolias. They are appealing trees with shiny green leaves and creamy white flowers. Some become very large with enough warmth and moisture. I was frustrated the some did not look healthy…but there were enough that did to make a collage of pictures from bud to flowers to the beginning of the seed pod.

Texas Gardens in June 2012

A few weeks ago - before and after my time in Tennessee - I was in the Dallas, Texas area visiting family. June is one of the best times for gardens in Texas - before the heat burns or dries out the more delicate vegetation. But don’t be fooled - even the arbor covered with trumpet vine was no substitute for escaping to an air conditioned house after being out for a morning walk! 

How many plants can you identify in the slide slow below? Here’s a quick list of what it includes: 

• Trumpet vine
• Lilies (several kinds)
• Mesquite
• Canna
• Hibiscus
• Sunflowers
• Amaryllis
• Onion
• Pinks
• Purple peas
• Beets
• Squash 

Rock Island and Burgess Falls and State Parks - Tennessee

Continuing my series of posts about my trip to Tennessee several weeks ago - today the focus is on two more state parks: Rock Island and Burgess Falls. Both of these parks are all about water…Center Hill Lake and the falling water around it. Rock Island has falls that come out of a cavern mid-way up a cliff. The road over the dam is closed so it takes some driving around to see the whole park…but is well worth the effort. There is a charming spring house associated with the ruins of a textile mill. Burgess Falls is more water over rocks. Both parks have interesting hikes. The best time to go is probably late spring/early summer or in the fall…not in the heat of summer unless you are going to actually get in the water! Enjoy the slide show below - I’ve marked the pictures by park.

Other Tennessee posts: 

• Falls Creek Falls and Cumberland Mountain State Parks - Tennessee
• Museum Strategies
• Water Lilies
• Cheekwood Garden and Art Museum
• Cheekwood’s Howe Garden
• Cheekwood Tree Houses

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 7, 2012

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles I read this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article:

Paint-On Lithium Battery Can Be Applied to Virtually Any Surface - Storage for energy from paint-on solar panels?

Atrazine, a continued concern for all - herbicide banned in the EU but still used in the US….and in our water supply

Good News for Aging Eyes: Debilitating Eyesight Problems On the Decline for Older Americans - Hurray!

Photos of fire damage in Western States - Scary and sad

Pictures: 25 new reef fish found - from National Geographic

Ocean Leaders “Shake Up” How We View the Seas - “Consider the ocean as the blue heart of the planet. How much of your heart would you save?” - Sylvia Earle

Wanted: Vision and Leadership to Ensure a Sustainable Water Future for America - It’s pretty scary what we don’t know about our water resources

What’s Behind the Record Heat? - Map showing temperature anomaly. My immediate area does not look too bad…but Colorado is having a very hot year.

Defuse Summer's TICKing Time Bomb - 10 tick prevention tips and a picture of what the Lyme’s Disease bullseye looks like.

Drought Monitor Shows Record-Breaking Expanse of Drought Across United States - The area where I live is ‘abnormally dry’ but there is a lot of country that is in drought conditions. Enlarge the map for a closer look.

Around our (Maryland) Yard in July 2012

I got up early on the 1st to take a walk around our yard. We had been without electricity for about 18 hours and were going to go on our quest for ice shortly. A hot day was forecast but it was comfortable in the morning. The grass was heavy with dew. There were only small branches and leaves strewn across the yard from the storm that caused the electrical outage….no sign nearby of why the power was out since our neighborhood lines are underground. Our young sycamore tree with two trunks was bent over when we first got up yesterday but had righted itself in the past 24 hours.

The day lilies blooming last month have spent themselves; there are large buds on some others that should add color later in July.

The dahlia bulbs I planted in the spring have buds that are just beginning to open. I need to remember to water them.

The hydrangea that was just budding last month now has large beautiful pink blooms. I cut some to take into the house.

We have gotten enough rain recently that some large mushrooms have come up next to an oak stump.

Previous Months:

June 2012, May 2012, April 2012, March 2012, January 2012 

Dallas Arboretum Chihuly - June 2012 - Part II

Continuing the post from yesterday….some other pictures are in today’s post. The blue font below indicates the pieces that are in today’s post.

The Dale Chihuly glass was placed in interesting settings within the gardens. The Blue Icicles (they look like blue yucca or aloes to me) were the first pieces we saw before we even bought our tickets. There was a tower of yellow icicles. The Blue Polyvitro Crystals were installed in a rocky creek - like chunks of blue ice. The Red and Blue Reeds stood in water or at its edges. Some were installed where mist would rise around them or in front of falling water. The Blue Marlins were in the area of rising mists. They somehow reminded me more of great blue herons than marlins. The Dallas Star was in an allee of crepe myrtle. There was glass on boats with balls of glass floating around on the water. Some clear and white glass forms were in a pool mimicking the lotus leaves growing there. There was a fanciful piece with green mirrored glass called Mirrored Hornets. There were towers of reed pieces. Ones I liked the best were the Scarlet and Yellow Asymmetrical Towers.

Enjoy the second group of pictures below. 

Lotus

Lotus

Dragonfly

Mirrored Hornets

Mirrored Hornets

Pretty pinks and greens

Scarlet and Yellow Asymmetrical Towers

Round and pink

Carnival Boat

Spider Lily

Marlins in Front of Falling Water

Yellow Hibiscus

Dallas Star (also like an allium)

Double Azalea

Succulent

Blue Marlins (herons?)

Trumpet Vine

Red Reeds

Garden Glass