November 07, 2024

Valley Water Mill Park

November 07, 2024/ Gwen Morrison

The MSU Identifying Woody Plants class went to Valley Water Mill Park last week. It is northeast of Springfield MO and includes a variety of habitats: upland forest, bottomland forest, wetland, glade, prairie, savanna, and lake/stream. It’s a place I will want to visit again.

We saw a lot of trees we had seen before and some new ones too. The fall is changing the way we go about identifying the woody plants we’d seen before.

The bald cypresses are losing their needles…and there were trees at this park with knees (the previous ones were growing in locations where they did not produce knees). The knees make them easy to ID.

The buttonbush had lost its leaves, but the round seed heads make it easy enough to ID.

There were lots of sycamore leaves on the ground…many were huge and, sometimes, still green.

A Wahoo was obvious but our teacher said there was aphid damage too which is frustrating.

Poison ivy berries…new-to-me…good to know.

Black cherry bark – of a young tree and an older tree.

Some new species:

A bittersweet – no leaves but lots of fruit.

A chestnut – ID from the bur alone down to genus.

Japanese honeysuckle. This is one I recognize easily but I hadn’t noticed the seeds before.

Coralberry. This might be one I add to my yard someday – although I don’t know where yet.

Black haw or cherry-leafed viburnum is even more likely to find its way into my yard. It might make a good planting in the bowl left from a tree in my front yard that was removed before we bought the house. It is a shrub that does well in shade so it might work to fill in between the two maples and provide flowers in the spring and fall/winter food for wildlife.

The lake was low even though there had been about an inch of rain the previous night. The area has been in drought for so long that it is going to take time to replenish the water level. There was evidence of beaver (many of the trees have wire cages around their base for protection.

Valley Water Mill Park might become one of my favorite places in the Springfield area. My husband and I will probably make a ‘field trip’ there and walk the whole loop around the lake. I also filled out the form to volunteer for their education/outreach programs.

October 09, 2024

Our Missouri Yard – September/October 2024

October 09, 2024/ Gwen Morrison

The chives have flowered and the seeds are almost mature. I savor these plants at the edges of some of my back yard beds since they are descendants of my mother’s plants; I harvested the seeds from her garden several years ago and will be enjoying them in my garden and in meals for as long as I live in this house.

The poke weed that I didn’t pull up is being eating by something. Maybe I should leave more of it for the insects.

There is a plant blooming in one of the areas I’ve not been mowing…letting the violets grow into the grass. I think it is sweet everlasting – which is native. Maybe I’ll collect the seeds and plant it elsewhere too.

I’ve harvested some of the American Spikenard seeds and planted them in a shady area where they might grow next spring. I would like to establish more of this plant in my yard. It dies back each winter but comes back from the root the following year getting bigger each year.

The shortleaf pine has dropped most of its mature cones but there are still a few in the tree and the terminal buds are a great color contrast to the needles….good photo opportunities!

I bought 4 native shrubs and small trees

And got them planted in my back yard the day after I bought them:

Spicebush – Lindera benzoi

Ozark Witch Hazel – Hamamelis vernalis

Buttonbush – Cephalanthus occidentalis

American Beautyberry – Callicarpa American

Digging the holes for these small plants was harder than I expected – a lot of small rocks and some plastic mesh that is a few inches under the soil surface (the previous owner had the yard sodded and they must have put the mesh down before they put the sod…I am chagrined that there is a plastic pollutant under most of my yard but can’t do anything about it).

I’ll save the fall foliage pictures for another post!

October 08, 2024

Some New Native Plants

October 08, 2024/ Gwen Morrison

This time of year, there are native plant sales at local gardens and nature centers. My daughter and I went to one last week and I got 4 new native plants for my back yard:

Buttonbush – Cephalanthus occidentalis is going in a location to extend a flowerbed out into the backyard and maybe eventually connect to the bed that is in the middle of the yard that I planted where we had a pine tree that fell over and was removed.

Spicebush – Lindera benzoin is going on the east side of the backyard that is shady most of the day and the violets are overflowing the boundaries of the flower bed. I have stopped mowing part of it and the Spicebush will go into that area (I’ve also planted some pawpaw seeds there so the area could be very lush in the future if they come up.

Ozark Witch Hazel – Hamamelis vernalis is going on the southwest side of our back yard where I have stopped mowing. I will have to make a point of walking out into the yard to see it bloom in January!

American Beautyberry – Callicarpa American is going in the bed where the pine tree was removed. It is a lower growing that the button bush so will be a nice layer in the yard from the walking trail on the outside of our fence that leads to the neighborhood ponds….in a few years.

Several of the native plants that I got last year are doing well this year. The goldenrod is blooming and the American spikenard has made seeds that I am scattering in other shady places in my yard where they might grow well. I’ll continue to plant native wildflowers…but with these 4 new ones I probably have most of the bushes that I want to add to my yard.

I am preparing a relatively narrow area between an eastern white pine and the beds on the east side of our patio by making layers of clippings; it will become a leaf pile un a few weeks for the winter. It is very shady there. I have hostas and lambs ear that I will divide in the spring (non-native but I have them already growing in my yard); longer term – I hope the American spikenard seeds come up and that that plant will add an ‘umbrella’ of vegetation.

July 12, 2023

Missouri Botanical Garden – June 2023 (1)

July 12, 2023/ Gwen Morrison

So much to see at the Missouri Botanical Garden…

The Climatron is full of lush tropical plantings. Intimate landscapes of ferns and bromeliads…

Flowers (including orchids) and seeds tucked into the greenery….

Flowers and stems different than we see in temperature parts of the world.

Out in the summer sunshine…cone flowers and sunflowers thrive.

Daylilies are blooming profusely.

There was a very odd plant in Linnean House. I took several views of it…and should have taken a picture of the tag too!

I found myself interested in objects where the light was not overly bright or overhead.

And there were some places/plants that became immediately special: a large puffball under a bald cypress that was growing before the garden was started, button bush (one of my favorite native plants), and a woodland area with a gurgling stream (artificial but made to look natural, I enjoyed a short rest on a bench).

I appreciated the Stumpery garden….learning a bit about the history too.

And a few more plants I enjoyed photographing….before we went into the restaurant for lunch (and air conditioning) before we headed home.

July 06, 2021

Kenilworth Park & Aquatic Gardens – 3

July 06, 2021/ Gwen Morrison

Continuing the posts about our hike at Kenilworth Park & Aquatic Gardens in Washington DC…today the topic is everything I noticed other than the lotuses and dragonflies.

I looked for a shelf fungus on one the trees near the entrance that I’d seen over several years. It was gone but there was some pancake looking fungus patches on one of the high branches!

There were other flowers blooming:

2021 06 IMG_4745 (2).jpg — Pickerel Weed. In past years it attracted tiger swallowtail butterflies. I didn’t see any in the gardens this year.

Hibiscus. Not as many as in previous years. This one was growing at the edge of one of the ponds.

Water lilies. There were none of the giant lily pads that have been at Kenilworth in previous years and some of the ponds usually filled with water lilies were open water…but there were enough for a few pictures.

Button bush. Again – not as many as I remembered. I wondered what happened to them since it seems like they would be durable along the pond edges from year to year.

Trumpet vine. A robust native. My mother planted one in the 1960s in a corner of our back yard and then battled it with pruners to keep it from deconstructing the fence.

We walked on the boardwalk out to the mash and river. I was hoping to see herons but didn’t spot any.

At the very end there was a tree with lots of seeds growing in the loop of the boardwalk. It looks like a tree of heaven….a non-native and very invasive. I was surprised that it had not been cut down.

It was getting hotter, and we headed back through the gardens to the car. I was glad I had some cold water to drink on the drive home!

January 08, 2020

My 2019 in Review - Photos

January 08, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

I managed to pick 26 pictures that were my favorites of the year either because I liked the way they turned out or because of a memory they evoked. I noticed some themes after I had collected them.

All except one are outdoors (although two were taken through my office window so I was standing indoors when I took them).

Many were pictures of plants: bare trees, witch hazel, red yucca seed pod, button bush, joe pye weed, cardoon, sunflowers, beautyberry, and red buckeye (nuts).

7 were pictures of animals or evidence of animals (other than birds): whelk shells, horseshoe crab beginning to roll over, northern red-bellied cooter (turtle), tiger swallowtail butterflies, cicada, spider, gray tree frog.

6 were pictures of birds or feathers: pelican, ibis, gallinule, bald eagle (wet), red-bellied woodpecker.

There are two sunrise pictures: one from my front porch on the first day of 2019 and one from October when we were camping in southern Virginia.

More than half the pictures are from places I go that are close to where I live (i.e. not requiring an overnight trip).

July 31, 2019

Brookside Gardens – July 2019

July 31, 2019/ Gwen Morrison

2019 07 IMG_4948.jpg — 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.

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.

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.

2019 07 IMG_4925.jpg — 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.

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.

2019 07 IMG_5001.jpg — There are plenty of Monarch caterpillars of all sizes on butterfly weed in the caterpillar house as well.

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.

July 05, 2019

Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens – June 2019

July 05, 2019/ Gwen Morrison

The plants that are the main attractions during the June and July at Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens are the lotuses and the water lilies.

The lotuses were in full bloom in the later part of June when we visited but there weren’t many seed pods yet.

I also found a rolled-up lotus leaf that was interesting. The leaves are round, balancing on a central stem but they start out as a scroll like structure that unfolds. This one was still tightly coiled. I might use it as a prompt to create a Zentangle pattern.

The water lilies did not seem as dense as they have in previous years and I wondered if the rains and cool temperatures earlier this summer impacted the water lily development.

The button bush was beginning to bloom; I didn’t notice any seed pods yet. There is a ways to go before all the flowers are pollinated…lots of bee activity.

Two trees stood out:

There was a group of developing pine codes high up in a pine near the entrance and

Some shelf fungus growing around a knot (maybe where a branch had been). It looks a little like a bear face to me. I’d noticed it last year too. The shelf fungus look more cracked this year but they still have the orange underneath.

I heard green frogs and searched the shallows from where the sound seemed to emanate….but never saw the frog.

A pearl crescent butterfly opened its wings as it sat in the grassy path and paused long enough for me to get a picture.

We saw two different kinds of turtles (identified with the help of a reference from Maryland Department of Natural Resources): a small red-eared slider (not native to our area but invading) and

A large northern red-bellied cooter – which is native to our area. It was a large specimen. I wondered how long it had taken to get that big…about 12 inches.

Both ponds had a lot of algae and muck so the turtle shells looked grubby but the heads were vey distinctive…enough for the identification.

Overall – the field trip to Kenilworth was worthwhile and very enjoyable. We went in the morning before the day got too hot.

August 23, 2018

Outdoors at Brookside Gardens

August 23, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

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.

s 20180813_IMG_3151.jpg — 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.

2018-07-30-Brookside butterflies-001.jpg

There are several kinds of datura in the garden.

I had never nptoced what the seed pod looked like before.

2018 08 IMG_3229.jpg — 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.

c 2018 08 IMG_3218.jpg — 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.

August 15, 2018

Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens in August 2018 – Part I

August 15, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

Last week we made our last trip to Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens for this year. The lotus flowers are nearing the end although there were still a few plants blooming.

a 20180809_091941.jpg — There are many more seed pods than flowers now…at all stages of development.

The button bushes have a few blooms still…but are also showing off seed pods.

There was an oak leaf in the parking lot that looked a lot like a city map (white roofs) with noticeable greenways.

The rose mallows are still full of buds and blooms.

I was glad to see the water lilies still blooming. The extra rain might have prolonged their season a bit this year.

Stay tuned for a post about insects and a turtle we saw at Kenilworth tomorrow…and then the birds we saw will be featured in the post for Friday.

July 19, 2018

Kenilworth Gardens – Buttonbushes and Dragonflies

July 19, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

There are other things to see beside lotuses and waterlilies at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens. One of my favorite plants to photograph is the buttonbush in bloom. They were in all stages of bloom development last weekend.

The plants are very attractive to insects. Bees are frequently visitors

As are the small skipper butterflies.

There was one large tiger swallowtail that seems to be methodically getting nectar and staying on once of the balls for a long time…great for picture taking.

We always look for dragonflies when we visit Kenilworth and last weekend was no exception. There did not seem to be as many of them. The first one I managed to photograph sat on some lotus petals in the deep shade…and was a very small dragonfly.