Missouri Master Naturalist Training – Week 4

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There were 2 Missouri Master Naturalist (MMN) training evenings during week 4. The topics for the first one were migratory birds and wildlife management. Both lectures were informative, and I read 3 publications from the Missouri Department of Conservation afterward:

 Missouri Bird Conservation Plan Technical Section

Missouri Bird Conservation Plan Outreach Plan

Missouri Wildlife Management Plan

The topics for the second evening were Birds of Missouri (also Project Feederwatch), capstone projects and Botany. I took a bowl of show-and-tell materials that is the beginning of some collecting for my MMN capstone project (an educational trunk for trees). The red seeds of the magnolia that look a lot like red M&Ms and the size comparison between acorns (pin and white oak) and cones (hemlock and shortleaf) were the biggest hits…fun to share.

The follow-up from this class is to be ready to participate in Project Feederwatch at my house beginning in November; it will be something my husband and I will do together.

One of the handouts was a booklet Fifty Common Trees of Missouri (from the Missouri Department of Conservation) which I promptly looked at and checked the trees I’ve seen in the field in my Identifying Woody Plants class (30 of the 50 although the introductory lectures we have before going into the field have covered more of the 50).

I still need to browse the handouts from the two sessions.

There are also some things I can do to move along my capstone project…and I need to remember to keep track of the hours I am spending doing that.

Yard Work at my Daughter’s

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Last week my daughter and I finally got around to cutting down a mimosa tree we are trying to kill that keeps returning to her yard. I took our Ryobi Sawzall (battery powered) for the job.

It made quick work of the long but relatively small branches/trunks.

We used long-handled pruners for the last cut and for the pokeweed that was growing rampant nearby. My daughter was the one that waded into the bed…her gloves and clothes were covered with burrs; we are going to proactively get rid of those plants next year while they are blooming (before the burrs form)!

I enjoyed taking pictures around her yard between handing tools to her and carrying away the branches as they were cut. There is a small solanum that has produced black fruits. The Southern Magnolia pods are forming. Miniature roses are blooming again; I like the color variation the small bush supplies. The Black Eyed Susans are a little battered but still brilliant color in the flower beds.

I tried photographing several Queen Anne’s Lace seed pods. They always look like a jumbled mess but there are a lot of seeds in there!

August in our Neighborhood

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It was a mostly cloudy morning when I took a walk around our neighborhood last weekend. I noticed that the stonecrop near our front porch was ready to bloom and the seeds had formed on a redbud tree near the entrance path to the ponds.

A willow hangs over the inflow channel to the ponds…shading the area and making a fringe of green almost down to the water.

The native plants that had been in pots several weeks ago when I walked around the neighborhood last have been planted around the shore of the largest pond and there was a stick near one of them with an Eastern Amberwing dragonfly sitting still long enough to be photographed.

A little further along two small red-eared slider turtles were soaking in the warmth of the morning.

I always enjoy photographing magnolia flowers. The season is far enough along for the tree to have some seed pods forming too.

Last time I walked around the neighborhood there was a bullfrog sitting in the shallows of the larger pond. This time, there was one in the shallows of the smaller one. Based on the coloring…it was not the same frog! Both times, the frog seemed very focused on the pond…paid no attention to me walking around to get another perspective.

The fungus on the old stump along my route back home, has changed significantly. There appear to be 5 or 6 different kinds!

Daughter’s Yard

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My daughter’s house was built in the 1950s and has some very large mature trees. Even the plants that are not of that vintage, are robust. By the fall – the summer growth has often become overwhelming, so I offer to help with the grand cleanup before winter. On the day we chose – it was cloudy…warm rather than hot. The yard had been mowed the previous day so we could focus on other everything else rather than leaves. It was a good day for the project.

I noticed the holly berries on her two trees had almost all turned orange (or their way to red); those trees didn’t need any maintenance!

There was pokeweed in several places that needed to be pulled (she is still battling it…no truce or peace yet in her yard!). It was growing in the woodpile, between bricks of the patio….and other places too.

The path to the side of the house overhung by a mature redbud shading the hostas and ferns on both side of the flagstones yielded several armloads of sticks to supplement the wood pile. Hopefully they will have a cookout using their firepit (and burn a lot of the pile) when they have their annual pumpkin carving event.

There was a mimosa that had come up in one corner of the fenced area. We didn’t have a saw, so we cut the top out with big pruners and girded the trunk further down. I’ll brink my saw next time we work.

It didn’t take us long to fill a dumpster with vines and weeds (including pokeweed) that we pulled.

What I thought was a cherry tree turned out to be a crabapple (when I cut open one of the fruits). I learn something new in her yard every time I work there!

The other plant I hadn’t recognized before was (I think) a silverbell. I’ll look next spring for its flowers. It’s a small tree growing under her big oak.

Other beauties in the flower beds that I couldn’t resist: cedar, wood hydrangea, Asian hydrangea, lichen, shelf fungus, southern magnolia seed pods (another huge tree).

I took home 3 magnolia seed pods - hope to watch how the seeds pop out as the pods dry.

We had some productive hours….and we felt good about what we had accomplished!

Hydrangea Flowers and Magnolia Pods

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It won’t be long before we have afternoons blowing/raking/mulching leaves in my daughter’s yard…but until then I am enjoying the end of her summer yard when I visit there. The seed pods of the Southern Magnolia are full of red seeds right now. They always remind me of red M&Ms! The pods will eventually become a nuisance on the ground…but on the tree they are interesting – colorful, splitting to allow the seeds to escape- these are prehistoric flowering trees with seed pods that look very much like cones.

She encouraged me to cut the flowers from her Asian hydrangea since temperatures into the 30s were being forecast. There were 3 flower clusters (others too…but they were not mature enough to open if cut). I trimmed the lower leaves off right after I cut them and put the flowers in a large vase as soon as I got home. They’ve been on my office windowsill within line of sight from where I sit at my computer since then.

The flowers last for a long time – which gave me several opportunities to do some artsy photography with them over the past few days. What’s not to like with the gentle pink and blue…bright green! I managed some almost high key images….with smudges of color and screen grid in the background.  It was a good ‘rainy day’ activity.

Springfield, Missouri Yard

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My daughter and son-in-law recently bought and moved to their first house…one with a beautiful yard. At first, I enjoyed the yard from the sunroom in the early morning before the moving activities began. All the windows are screened so the pictures are not great --- I was thrilled to see the hummingbird (probably a ruby-throated) and a woodpecker (probably a downy). It appeared that a pair of cardinals were nesting in a cedar. There were squirrels and bunnies around as well. Later the pea plants my son-in-law is growing for a project were moved from their rental house and were put on the brick patio where they would get some sun for part of the day.

I walked around the yard on a subsequent day and took pictures that I could label with the trees/scrubs I could easily identify…and then more detailed pictures. The backyard has a decorated gate…and lots of great plantings. We learned from a neighbor that the owner before last was a Master Gardener…and many of the plantings from that time have endured! The dogwood was already growing seeds. There were swamp irises still blooming and some other plants with lots of buds that I wasn’t sure what they are, but I anticipate some native perennials that will be good for pollinators. The holly was blooming. There are a lot of evergreens and ferns in the space between the house and the neighboring house. I’ll document the evergreens there during a winter visit.

The side and front yard have the largest trees: Southern Magnolia, Oak, and River Birch. The magnolia was shedding more leaves than usual after some extreme cold last winter…but it had lots of buds and is starting to bloom. The maples and redbuds (in back and front) are smaller; all of them have produced many seeds this year. There are two types of native hydrangeas (wood in the back and oak leaf in the front).

Even the edges of the driveway are scenic. There are brick walkways in every direction from the drive into the yard; they are littered with magnolia leaves. Even the water spigot is special. Some miniature roses were just starting to bloom in the bed between the garden room and the driveway as they moved into the house…with lots of buds.

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The house is great…the yard is amazing. What a wonderful home!

Zooming – June 2019

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So many aspects of nature to photograph in June: flowers and butterflies, frogs and birds…bunnies.

There were photos around home or close to home…and then in Missouri and Ohio. I’ll be learning the route between home and Missouri with two more trips in July…I’ll see how different the places look a month later.

There’s beauty to be found all over if we take the time to look for it!

US National Arboretum in Early Spring

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Last weekend we went to the US National Arboretum to see cherry blossoms. We entered the New York Avenue Gate and parked in the big lot just inside….with cherry trees in sight. We walked over to the trees. I got side tracked by some golden moss with spore capsules…had to take pictures from overhead and then from ground level. It was growing under the cherry trees.

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The days before we went had been windy and I found some blooms on the ground – little jewels in the dried leaves and moss.

I zoomed to get some close-up pictures of flowers on the trees – all shades of pink to white.

As I took some pictures of the high branches of one tree, I noticed a lot of bees. I was photographing hand held so had to be content with just knowing the dots in the pictures were insects!

We got back in the car and continued further into the arboretum. There were a lot of cars parking along the side of the road and we could see trees that were blooming ahead. We thought maybe it was more cherry trees. But no – it was deciduous magnolias! They were probably at their peak and gorgeous. People where photographing young children under the trees and held up next to the flowers. There were several different kinds of deciduous magnolias in bloom. My favorites were the deepest pink ones that I saw at the very beginning.

I zoomed in on two buds. Note that the outer covering is very fuzzy. Then there is a covering that looks like brown paper….and then the petals.

Evergreen (southern) magnolias are in the grove as well. They will be beautiful this summer. Right now, the empty pods from last summer are dried (on the tree or the ground under it) – and a study of complexity. I didn’t see a single red seed that had survived the winter in a pod!

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Magnolias

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This time of year, we are seeing the last of the magnolia blooms for the year. I like the white blooms with the velvet brown underside of the leaves.

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Even when the flowers start to fade, their deepening color is appealing. These two flowers were on a Southern Magnolia tree at Brookside Gardens that did not look quite healthy. I hope this bloom time was not its last. It often seems that stressed trees make a huge push to make seeds.

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And then there are the seed pods. There are variations with the different varieties of magnolias, but I always imagine that the seeds look like red M&Ms. I mentioned during a pre-school field and one child told me – with a very serious face – “except they don’t have an ‘M’ on them”! My favorite pods are on the sweet bay magnolia because they are more seed – less pod and the specimens near where I hike with students are low enough for them to easy see them.