Outdoors at Brookside Gardens
/I try to take a few minutes before each shift volunteering at Brookside Gardens Wings of Fancy to walk around outside in the gardens. There is a lot going on in August. I am featuring some of my favorite things I noticed and photographed in this post.
Button bush and cone flowers and sunflowers – with and without bees.
Joe Pye Weed in bloom…very popular with the tiger swallowtails. One morning I photographed a dark morph female with several of the yellow and black versions.
Monarchs are more prevalent in the garden than they were earlier.
I can never resist checking the gingko tree near the conservatory. I like the way the leaves look outlined in gold of the morning sunshine.
The sumac is a plant I am tracking this year. I recognize the seed heads but want to capture how the seeds develop. This will take me further into the fall since they don’t look like they’ve changed too much during this month.
There are always a lot of funnel spider webs in the low pines around the conservatory….and sometimes the spider is visible.
There are several kinds of datura in the garden.
I had never nptoced what the seed pod looked like before.
Some of the trumpets hang downward and I appreciated that the screen on my new camera can pivot so I can see what the camera is seeing when it is point straight up! I’ve always wanted to photography the unfurling flower.
The bald cypress has the scale insects like it did last summer but seems healthy enough to survive. The cones are beginning to form.
The cannas are beautiful this time of year. Some are producing seed pods.
This is the view from the ticket taker table for Wings of Fancy. I ended up doing the job when no one had signed up for it….a last minute change of plans.
There are milkweed plants close to the entrance to the caterpillar house and there are often insects on the plants other than caterpillars. When there are no visitors in the area…I roam around and take pictures; more on the caterpillars tomorrow.
