Lake Springfield Boathouse – May 2024

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My husband and I enjoy the area near the Lake Springfield Boathouse for its meadow and birds. I forgot about our late May visit until I rediscovered the pictures I took!

The gardens around the boathouse were beginning to bloom and there were gardeners at work while we were there. There is a good stand of milkweed and butterfly weed but I didn’t see any Monarch butterflies.

The Purple Martin houses were full of birds!

Bluebirds were around as well. They are probably utilizing houses in the area, but I saw them near the feeders and nearby trees.

There were a pair of tree swallows on a sign as well. They use the same size house as bluebirds.

The meadow is beginning to bloom but the morning was still cool enough that I didn’t see many insects – a few butterflies and bubble bees.

My husband commented that he missed the meadow we frequented in Maryland that had a path mowed through it – the plants on both sides making it easier to get close to insects for photography. The meadow near the boathouse is one large area: no easy access to the interior.

Quigley Castle

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We stopped by Quigley Castle on our way from Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge to Eureka Springs….and enjoyed it more than we anticipated! We were greeted by a granddaughter of the builders of the place and several very comfortable cats. The garden is full of plants and yard art made by Elise Fiovanti Quigley: bottle trees and aggregates of stones and other small objects on many different forms. She evidently started her collecting as a child and her husband moved the rock collection with them when they came to the farm that was near the lumber mill where he worked…and he helped her continue to collect too.

The house was built from lumber cut from their own property to Elise’s specification in the mid-1940s which includes 4 feet of soil between the edges of the living space and the walls making it possible to grow tropical plants that grow 2 stories high; the house has 28 windows. She worked for 3 years to cover the outside of the house with a collection of fossils, crystals, arrowheads, and stones; her work has proved to be very durable – the exterior of the house not requiring any significant maintenance.  She had parakeets that were free to roam through the plants (and her grandchildren have continued the tradition)!  Inside the house there are more aggregate covered surfaces...some with shells rather than rocks…and an insect collection in large jars and cover one wall in a bedroom. The moths had lost most of their color but some of the butterflies still look relatively fresh. There are original household items in the house too; the house has been continuously lived in since it was built. The granddaughter that handles most of the tours at the house lives there now (her rooms closed off from the places we walked through in the house).

Quigley Castle was a good finale to our Eureka Springs trip…and I’ll probably stop there again when I am in Eureka Springs.

Garvan Woodland Gardens (1)

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I’d heard about Garvan Woodland Gardens from one of my neighbors – decided that it was a place to see along with Hot Springs National Park. Out membership in Friends of the Springfield Botanical Gardens provided us with free admission so we visited on both days we were in Hot Springs.

On the first day, we arrived after lunch and noticed the carillon as we walked from the parking lot to the welcome center.

It had rained earlier in the day and the humidity was very high. We opted to take the Golf Cart Tour (which cost us $20 each) – which turned out to be a great way to orient ourselves to the place. Our driver/guide was very informative about the history, maintenance, and highlights of the gardens. Our visit between spring and summer flowers so there were not a lot of blooms…but the trees and the ambiance of the place made the visit worthwhile. I took a few pictures along the tour: pools of water on rocks, a stone bridge, a few flowers, the slope down to the lake, butterfly weed, ferns with horsetails, fairy houses, and the shape of an eye in stone.

Tomorrow’s post will be about our second visit to Garvan Gardens when we revisited our favorite places.

Springfield Botanical Gardens – October 2023

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A quick walk around the Springfield Botanical Gardens on a sunny fall day – full of photographic opportunities.

I always like the hens and chicks near the Botanical Center. I like the green and red/pink colors…the texture of the plants growing close together. I wondered which plants were the ‘hens.’

There were a few trees in fall color, but most were still green.

The hosta garden waterfall was sunny…and the begonia beside it added a pop of color.

Sometimes the veins of leaves remind me of Zentangle patterns.

There was a female Monarch Butterly on some butterfly weed still blooming in the butterfly garden. It was a larger insect…one that would be migrating south to Mexico.

I saw a black swallowtail in the butterfly garden as well but it flew away before I could photograph it. There were bees and skippers everywhere there were blooming plants – but these photos were taken in the Master Gardeners area.

I took several pictures of hibiscus – probably close to the end of the season for them. This magenta one appealed to me because of the color, the freshness of the petals, and the angle of the flower from my vantage point. Even the shadow of the central part of the flower in the midday sun is appealing.

While many of the flowers are fading fast, there were some that seemed to be in full bloom – the last hoorah of a productive growing season.

Sophia M. Sachs Butterly House

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After a day at the Missouri Botanical Garden – we headed to the Sophia M. Sachs Butterfly House near St. Louis MO the next morning. Its another facility that is part of the Missouri Botanical Garden. We were there a few minutes before it opened and walked around the outside gardens. It included a giant butterfly and caterpillar sculpture!

There was also a butterfly bench like the ones in Brookside Gardens in Maryland!

There were many fall plants blooming too – including cone flowers, butterfly weed, and goldenrod.

We entered the building as it opened. Everything had a butterfly theme – even a wall sculpture near the restrooms.

The conservatory is a year-round climate-controlled space for butterflies. We were familiar with many of the butterflies there because of our experiences at Brookside. Some of the butterflies were tagged – not sure why. We enjoyed watching the children with their families experience the butterflies – noticing butterflies in the air…looking to see them on the fruit or in the foliage.

The exit  from the conservatory leads to another garden with a water feature and sculpture of a child with butterflies on her hand and knee.

It was a good morning activity. We enjoyed photographing the gardens and butterflies (would be even more appealing in the winter when the conservatory would be pleasantly warm compared to outdoors) and we headed home afterward.

Hagerman Wildflowers – May 2023

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The wildflowers were abundant at Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge in May…and the cloudy weather didn’t impact photography of them as it did for the birds. I enjoyed taking some assemblages of flowers in the roadside meadows.

Most of my images were zoomed in shots of single species – queen Anne’s lace, amaranth, coneflower, butterfly weed, milkweed….and more.

Some of the plants had insects on them too…an added attraction.

I experimented with some high key images too…the advantage of a cloudy sky.

The redbud near the visitor center is one of my favorite trees to photograph – an easy access specimen for macro photography.

I’m looking forward to seeing the changes when I visit the refuge in June. Some of the flowers will last through the summer….others will be done with their blooms for the year. Being able to visit a refuge like Hagerman every month is one of the best things about 2023 (so far)!

Tree Mulching Project

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When we first moved to Missouri last summer, we hired a crew to mow/weed eat/edge our yard. This season I am doing it. The first time I mowed (with our new battery powered mower…a big improvement over the gasoline powered one we had in Maryland), it was obvious that the job would be easier if the trees had mulch around them – an area large enough to avoid any low branches. The front yard has three trees: 2 red maples and an Asian dogwood. The red maples are relatively young trees so the mulched area did not need to be large. The dogwood had a lot of lower branches that I wanted to keep – hence a larger circle of mulch.

The first step was define the circle I would cover with mulch with very short grass; it was a good project for me to learn to use our new weed eater (also batter powered).

My husband helped me pour bags of mulch and I spread it around with a rake. The red maples took 1.5 bags each and the dogwood took 3 bags.

My follow up plan is to plant some daylilies and butterfly weed in the mulch areas around the red maples. The base of the young trees in sunny because are relatively skinny trees; the plants should do well. I enjoyed the ‘ruff’ of daylilies I had around the base of our oak tree in Maryland, and I hope eventually that will happen around these red maples. The plants might make it easier to extend the mulch circles as the trees grow since they reproduce rapidly. There aren’t deer wondering through our Missouri neighborhood eating buds like candy (like happened in Maryland); I’m looking forward to having flowers!

Brookside Gardens – July 2019

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Even though the weather has been very hot this month, there are still plenty of flowers at Brookside Gardens that are weathering the heat.

The buttonbushes have all stages of flowers and seed formation now.

The green cones are forming on the bald cypress.

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The butterfly weed seed pods are bursting open even as the Monarch caterpillars are munching on their leaves. The common milkweed pods are still green.

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There are quite a few butterflies out in the gardens enjoying the flowers. The tiger swallowtails particularly enjoy the Joe Pye Weed. Last weekend I noticed more Monarch butterflies in the gardens. Maybe these are arriving from Mexico although it certainly is later than usual.

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I walk around the gardens before my shifts at the Wings of Fancy exhibit. There were only two this month because of the travel I did during the first half of the month. There are plenty of things to see like chipmunks and milkweed bugs.

I even found a feather on a leaf that I could get close enough for a macro shot.

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In the exhibit, the caterpillars are eating and growing. There was a Palamedes swallowtail caterpillar that had a ‘sun worshipper’ pose on a ‘excessive heat’ day.

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There are plenty of Monarch caterpillars of all sizes on butterfly weed in the caterpillar house as well.

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Inside the conservatory, I don’t have much time to take pictures of butterflies (lots of visitors) but I did manage a few. One day it was so hot that even the butterflies were desperate for water (on the floor) and not flying as much.

Saturday Hike – Part I

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Last Saturday, I lead a hike from Howard County Conservancy’s Belmont Carriage House down to the Patapsco River. It was a cool gray morning – a good day for a fall hike.

The starlings and male brown-headed cowbirds were busy around the carriage house when I arrived.

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I appreciated the leaf color of the sugar maple near the carriage house since most of the other leaves in our area seem to be staying green on the trees or falling off before they change color

I noticed that the pods on the butterfly weed had opened but the seeds were still tightly packed inside. Perhaps the rain has come frequently enough this year that the white fibers haven’t dried out enough to become the parachutes for the seeds.

That was the calm before the hike. The list of people that had signed up was long – over 50 people. But only 21 showed up. That was large enough and I was glad that another volunteer was available to bring up the rear on the way down and be at the front for the uphill trek.

More about the hike itself in tomorrow’s post.

Gleanings of the Week Ending September 15, 2018

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

BBC - Future - How China’s giant solar farms are transforming world energy – Giant solar farms that, when viewed from the air form Giant Pandas. All over the world…but in China particularly…there are more and more enormous solar farms. It’s good for the immediate future but there are still issues with what happens when the solar panels need to be recycled (i.e. in 30 or so years).

New research shows how children want their food served -- ScienceDaily – I didn’t find this a challenge…my daughter always enjoyed her food. It seems more likely to be challenging in places like school cafeterias or other institutional settings.

Photos Show the Icy Glacier Landscape of Northeast Greenland – Life lurking in the ice waters. It’s a difficult place to dive.

Landscape Plants Rated by Deer Resistance (Rutgers NJAES) – Maryland is not that far from New Jersey so this list works for us – although I wish they would mark the plants native to North America. I’d rather plant natives.

How This Popular Garden Plant May Spread Parasites That Harm Monarchs | Smart News | Smithsonian – Aargh!!!! We need to be sure we are not planting tropical milkweed in areas where it is not native….the orange butterfly weed – which is also a milkweed – is native across most of North America and a good plant to have in the garden for Monarch butterfly caterpillars.

New color-generation mechanism discovered in ‘rainbow’ weevil -- ScienceDaily – The researches from Yale propose that this mechanism might be useful for screen displays to enable the same true image from any angle and to reduce signal loss in optical fibers.

What Ötzi the Iceman’s Tattoos Reveal About Copper Age Medical Practices | Smart News | Smithsonian – There have been papers coming out about additional discoveries from the remains found in the Alps in 1991 over the years --- there was a lot we could learn and new technologies have come along to enable more than anyone thought about at first.

Night-time habits of captive flamingos -- ScienceDaily – The forage and roam! Evidently, they are more active at night in the wild as well. During the day they tend to rest and preen…that’s when courtship displays happen as well.

Muscle Clocks Play a Role in Regulating Metabolism | The Scientist Magazine® - Circadian rhythms are not just from the brain! There are timekeepers throughout the body. The peripheral clock in muscles was confirmed in 2007 and it turns out that it is important to glucose metabolism. There is still a lot to learn about all the body’s timekeepers!

BBC - Future - Are hot springs the future of farming? – Maybe there is not one strategy that is the ‘future of farming’ – but this is an interesting idea that we may see in places where it can be done effectively.