Missouri Botanical Garden – June 2023 (2)

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There are aspects of the Missouri Botanical Garden that are not plants….but are part of the garden experience.

There are benches at handy intervals; it always seemed easy to find one in the shade! Maybe I will make a project of photographing more of the benches during some future visit.

The ceiling in the Sachs Museum is worth the few steps inside…check out whatever is being exhibited there too.

There is a statue of Henry Shaw, founder of the Missouri Botanical Garden near his mausoleum. He set out to create a major and lasting institution more than 150 years ago. He died in 1889 and the garden has continued to thrive in all the directions he initiated…has expanded in ways he could not have imagined. My first experience with the garden was via their Botanicus site where the Missouri Botanical Garden has been digitizing botanical books and making them available since 1995; I found the site in 2009 and have been browsing their books (mostly via the Internet Archive interface). Visiting the garden is something I have wanted to do for a long time.

The Japanese Rock Garden areas around the water feature have smooth curves created with a rake…and there are Japanese lanterns too. A Great Blue Heron flew to a large rock in the center of the water feature and began to preen; the Canada goose in the background is doing the same.

In the Chinese Garden there are mosaics made with small stones as well as the traditional lions at the entrance.

I liked the bench around a tree. It reminded me of the one at Longwood Gardens when my daughter was young; we used it as a resting place where she could easily get up to run into the mists when the big fountains came on (it was a warm day); and then it was gone as part of the fountain renovation. I savored that memory sitting on this bench half the country away from Longwood (near Philadelphia).

There are small sculptures of wildlife too: wood ducks in the forest, butterflies in the butterfly garden….

Geese and racoons as part of fountains.

A purple martin house looked almost full.

One of the green areas had a ‘Mowbot’ to keep it trimmed.

At the end – I took pictures of the floor in the visitor center…familiar leaf shapes: horse chestnut, tulip poplar, sweet gum.

Looking back, it was a good ‘first visit’ – but I already want to go again!

Our Yard – May 2022

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Damp weather has been my excuse for not doing yard work…but I finally did a walk around and an hour of work a few days ago. The holly at the corner of the house was hiding the weeds behind it. They are gone now. The front flower bed had quite a few little trees: red maples and tulip poplars; they’ve been pulled.

I appreciated the oak near out mailbox. The tree has been declining but it looks like the spring rains have helped it come alive for another year. The Virginia creeper on its trunk has leafed out as well.

The azalea that drapes itself over a side of the front porch is blooming. I’m going to trim the bush beside it to give it more room….or maybe that will make it easier for the deer to nibble the tender azalea stems.

The nine bark bush is blooming. I will trim it after the blooms are done.

A branch broke in one of the bushes…I cut it out and the bush looks lush and green. There were also some vines growing up through the bushes…which I removed.

My goal in the chaos garden was to cut down everything except for the spice bush and, of course, the sycamore. I started but didn’t make much progress during my hour. I discovered some irises getting ready to bloom – which I won’t cut down!

Overall – I had a wheelbarrow of vegetation that I cut or pulled that was added to the brush pile at the edge of the forest. On the way I noticed that the violets are beginning to bloom. I dodged the ferns coming up under the deck as I returned the wheelbarrow to its place; there seem to be more ferns every year.

Phillips Landing Park

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My husband signed up us for 4 Delmarva Birding field trips as a last excursion to the eastern shore before we move to Missouri. The first field trip was at Phillips Landing Park near Laurel DE. It was a weekday so most of the other participants were retirees like us; we had two guides that were very familiar with the area…so we saw more than we would if we’d gone on our own.

Shortly after we started, my camera had a problem and I was challenged to work around it by using the eye piece rather than the screen for the rest of the morning….not what I usually do so my focusing/composition was not as good as usual even though the skew of pictures toward botanical rather than birds was probably about the same as it would have been with the camera working perfectly.

The plants are at the height of their variety in the spring with blossoms and unfurling leaves – the bright greens of mosses growing rapidly in the new warmth – unfurling ferns….good for photography although my eyes were itchy from the pollen laden air.

The high point of the botanical sightings: One of our guides pointed out a native orchid in bloom beside the path. They aren’t the large showy orchids of warmer climates; it takes a sharp eye to notice them!

There was an area near the path that looked like an egg laying site for a reptile….but something had found the eggs before they could hatch. There were eggshells among the acorns.

I did managed to photograph a few birds: courting cowbirds in the parking lot, a yellowlegs among the reeds, and a prothonotary warbler high in a tree.

The park was a good mix of habitat – watery area near the parking area (Broad Creek that flows into the Nanticoke River nearby) and a path through forest.

As we returned to our car, I saw a tiger swallowtail flit across the grassy area nearby. A good finale to a morning field trip!

Shades of Spring Green

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The dominate color of spring is green….in a lot of different shades. There are the greens that have suffered through the winter – usually darker like the holly and other evergreen bushes below. And then there is the new growth:

Pale greens like the new leaves of day lilies (nibbled by deer), tree leaves just unfurling (cherry and tulip poplar)

Blue tinged greens of the spring bulbs (daffodils and iris)

Yellowish greens of new nine bark leaves, and

Bright green of new moss growth and grass and violets and weeds.

I couldn’t resist the including the bright yellow of the dandelion blooms with all the green!

Cherry Blossoms

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Our cherry tree was blooming when I returned from Texas and retained enough blossoms through the rain and wind of my first days back to be worth photographing on the next sunny day. The temperatures were cool (almost cold) which probably slowed down the blooming.

I was most interested in getting macro pictures of the flowers and buds with the clip-on lens my husband got for me in December. There are a few leaves that are beginning to unfurl but the blossoms dominate.

The trees in our yard are progressing in the usual order. The red maple blooming first; that happened before I went to Texas; the seeds are forming now. Then the plum; there are still some battered blooms but there are more leaves than flowers at this point. Both the plum and cherry look better this year because they were professionally trimmed last fall.

The tulip poplar has green buds but will be a few weeks before the flowers open. The leaves are already more visible on the tulip poplars than any of our other trees.

Watching the trees emerge from winter is a rite of spring…always worth observing/photographing.

Icy Morning

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I was surprised when I looked at the forest behind our house one morning: the forecast was for the temperature to be above freezing overnight and into the morning but there was ice accumulating on the trees! I took some pictures: The sycamore

The red maple

The pines

The tulip poplar

I went downstairs to check the thermometer we have measuring the temperature on our deck – taking some pictures of the azalea near our front porch (always some good color in ice and snow) as I got the bottom of the stairs.

The thermometer was reporting 35.5 degrees Fahrenheit…so the forecast was correct, but the rain was cold enough to freeze to the branches! It was a good morning to be indoors and enjoy the icy scene. By the afternoon the ice was completely gone, and the sun came out.

A Winter Hike at Mt. Pleasant (1)

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Last week I hiked at Howard Country Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant on a sunny, cold morning with snow still on the ground in many places. The group I was with started out beside the Community Garden then then took the path toward Hodge Podge Lodge. Since I was with a group….I only had time for short stops for photography.

I stopped on the bridge just after Hodge Podge Lodge to take some pictures of ice crystals at the edge of the frozen stream.

A little further along – it seemed like there was more snow on the ground and I turned back to photograph Hodge Podge Lodge on the other side of the stream and through the trees.

One of the plants I always look for this time of year is skunk cabbage. They were not as visible as in most recent mid-Februarys because we’ve been having some colder days recently. There were a visible and I’m sure there were more if I’d had time to look more thoroughly. I’ll go again to spend more time…try to photograph one that is blooming.  

It’s easy to see irregularities in bark and hollows in the winter. I wondered if this tree was still alive…will remember look in the spring to see if it turns green with the rest of the forest.

There were several logs with turkey tail (shelf fungus) on them…and there was snow caught in the turkey tails.

Someone had left a handprint (no thumb) in the snow on one of the trailside benches.

We hiked to the champion Tulip Poplar at the edge of the Mt. Pleasant property. There is a housing development happening on the other side of the property line that may be problematic for the tree.

I took pictures of the bark – lots of holes and old wounds – and a large hollow (evidently black vultures have been seen entering/leaving the hole!).

I’ll post more tomorrow with  macro photography I did after the hike – back at the nature center.

Foggy Forest

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One morning it was warm enough to be foggy and wet in the forest rather than frosty and snowy. The fog softened the view from my office window. It’s a view of winter that could also be early spring. But I know it’s not early spring in February; this day is a brief respite from mornings below freezing. The taller trees in the background are tulip poplars. The tree to the right in front of them with the darker trunk is a red maple. The branches even more in the foreground on the left is a sycamore.

Zooming in on the sycamore….the droplets of water condensed from the fog are evident on the small branches. The wet branches are more colorful when they are wet; when they are dry the cracking, curling bark is brown or grey and the smooth parts are white. In the wet, it is easier to see that there are chloroplasts in the smooth parts….the tree can make sugars even in winter!

Morning Forest

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Our forest is on the west side of our house; the treetops often catch morning light over the house. There are a few minutes of orange color. I noticed it on three mornings in January…. photographing the forest illuminated in morning light. The first morning was after a snowy night. The seed pods on the tulip poplars provide enough texture to hold snow. In the second picture notice the pine in the lower left, the tulip poplars tall in the background, and the maple in the right foreground; the orange light had already begun to fade although there are parts of the forest interior that seems to pop through the maple branches.

There are times when the color looks surreal. In the winter I usually think of the forest being mostly brown…but it isn’t for these few minutes in the morning.

And the layering of the forest becomes more obvious. Somehow the clouds or the angle of the sun precluded the light from reaching the trees in the foreground on one morning…but the background trees were bathed in morning light.

Zooming – January 2022

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Not as many zoomed images to choose from in January – I did more photography with my phone than my bridge camera. I was in extra-rest mode for part of the month after my surgery and it was very cold outside. Still the usual January photo subjects have a showing this month: snow, birds, deer in our neighborhood and flowers indoors. Enjoy the January 2022 slide show!

Bark and Vine

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This time of year, some vines have lost their leaves and it is possible to see their dried stems overlaid on the texture of the bark. There was one such tree trunk I photographed in Druid Hill Park that appealed to me in much the same way as abstract art. My camera’s autofocus and exposure gave these first two pictures a different ‘feel’; the darker one seems more mysterious and a little sinister – a dark forest.

My favorite image is the most zoomed one – following my usual pattern. Shades of gray and brown…with the swath brittle leaves providing the highlight.

The tree was a tulip poplar…not sure what the vines are. Poison ivy vines would look fuzzy (lots of rootlets holding it onto the tree) and I couldn’t see any suckers that are common for Virginia Creeper. Maybe it is an invasive? It would have provided a little exercise in identification if I had taken a key for vines into the field!

Trek to and in Druid Hill Park – Part I

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Last weekend we drove into Baltimore for an Audubon sponsored birding walk at Druid Hill Park. It was our first birding event since before the pandemic – outdoors for 1.5 hours in a park with less than an hour to commute into the city and the back home afterward. It was a cool, cloudy morning – cold enough to wear a mask comfortably which we both did once the group started the walk and it was hard to maintain distance.

The walk started at 8 AM and the clouds occasionally parted enough for good lighting. I saw more birds that I was able to photograph. Canada Geese flew overhead and there were ruddy ducks, buffleheads, grebe, and gulls on the lake in the park. They were too far away for great pictures…but I like the light around the gulls. There were also a lot of smaller birds – cardinals, Carolina wrens, down woodpecker, gold finches, house finches, etc.. The only one I photographed was a norther flicker what perched almost right overhead!

There was still some great fall color. The rose bushes (red leaves) were enjoying the cooler weather.

There were some areas of the forest that still had lots of leaves on the trees…like our backyard was several weeks ago. I also saw a small tulip poplar tree; I hadn’t realized that there leaves get much larger when they are young; this one still had green leaves while the big trees around it were already bare showing off their many seed pods.

More tomorrow about our trek to the park…and then home again…through Baltimore.

Tree Trimming

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One of our ‘get ready for winter’ projects this fall was to get 2 trees trimmed. One of our neighbors made a well-timed comment about their arborist; we got an estimate…and the work was done a few weeks later. They did projects for several of our neighbors on the same day! The tree concerning me the most was a sycamore that shades the west corner of our house – making it much cooler in the summer. The problem was the branches that were brushing the side of the house and the roof (and skylight). I wanted to keep the tree…but not let it damage my house! I took some before and after pictures. The crew did a great job taking off the problematic branches and balancing the tree.

The other tree was our thundercloud plum – purchased about 18 years ago – just before the previous 17-year cicada emergence. It was small enough to cover with netting which protected during that first challenge. It had been damaged in the center by a branch that broke in an ice storm about 10 years ago; the trimming made that hole show more but now all the dead branches are out and the hole will begin to fill in. It will also be much easier to mow around it!

The work only took about an hour since the crew had great equipment (and knew what they were doing). The branches that were cut were shredded into a truck. As I walked around afterward – I photographed fall aspects of our trees. The red maple in our backyard is always the last to turn and drop its leaves; I like that I have longer to enjoy it.

The sycamore has lost a lot of leaves already. Many of them are very large. The Virginia Creeper growing on the trunk is turning red.

The tulip poplars leaves turn yellow but this year they are going from yellow to brown very quickly…often while the leaves are still on the tree. We get the leaves in our yard but the very large trees  are in the forest.

Overall – our fall tree trimming project was an easy success…and now we can focus on not letting the falling leaves build up too much on the grass. My strategy is to mow the leaves into the yard as much as possible rather than expending energy raking!

Reflections on the Mt Pleasant Farmhouse

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Last time I walked around Howard County Conservancy’s Mt Pleasant, I started thinking about the changes around the front of the farmhouse since I first saw it back in fall of 2013. The large tulip poplar in front of the house had already been cut down; over the years I noticed the increased weathering of the stump and its roots have decomposed too. It’s a favorite place to find snake skins and sometimes small snakes…spiders…ants!

The stump to the left was cut closer to the ground in the past few years after the tree started dropping branches and there was concern about potential damage to the farmhouse. I remember a hike with kindergarteners when the tree was still there – me standing about 6 feet away from the trunk of the tree…facing the children and their chaperones a little further from the tree…talking about what might live in the tree….they were talking about the birds and the squirrels…I turned around to gesture to the tree….and there at about eye level was a large black rat snake. What I great teaching moment! I pointed the snake out to the group. The chaperones took a few steps back; the children stayed put at rapt attention. We talked about why the snake might want to be in the tree as it slowly moved from its spot of sunshine on the trunk slithering underneath the loose bark until it was out of sight. Later, after the tree was cut down, some groups tried to count tree rings…others used the spot for a group picture.

The walk up to the front door was added in the year before the pandemic. The front porch is often used as a stop for the younger elementary school hikes and most groups were taking various routes over the grass to get there prior to the construction of the walk. The porch is particularly welcome on rainy days. On one such day before the walk was built, my group made it to the porch as the last stop before lunch; as we turned to go…it started raining even harder; we waited for a few minutes, but it didn’t let up and everyone was hungry. We eventually left the haven of the porch and splashed through puddles toward the nature center building – the revised picnic lunch location.

On the far right…across the gravel drive there is another stump. It was a silver maple that was planted in the later 1800s (based on the tree ring count). It was cut down a before the walk was built There was a ‘twin’ silver maple on the other side of the circular drive what was cut down at the same time (hidden by the cedars on the left in the pictures). The stump on the right was sanded and some steps cut into the side so that the kindergarteners could climb up to see (and count) the tree rings.

My history with the house is a few short years. The house has a longer history with the façade mostly from after the Civil War and there is a log cabin of even earlier vintage enclosed by the additions and modifications made to the house over the years. It’s interesting to think about the highs and lows of the family that lived there…the ways they used the spaces…made changes to fit their needs…the technology incorporated over the years (plumbing and electricity, for example). My few years are a short window into the house’s history!

Macro Landscapes

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On my recent walks around the yard, I’ve been noticing the tiny landscapes on the ground….the greens of very early spring. The moss under our deck stays green all winter and now there are tiny plants (clovers and mock strawberry) coming up through it. They’ll stay low growing so we’ll never mow the area.

A patch of moss can also be found near our chaos garden. It appears to be more yellowish (maybe got too dry) with red seta…the  sporophyte that was at the top of the seta is already gone (i.e. the spores long dispersed). The grass is beginning to grow around the moss and it will eventually be in the path of the lawn mower.

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There are some weeds beginning to grow too…..coming up in the grass, tulips poplar seeds, and rolls of sycamore bark. The mowing will keep it short. I tend to leave weeds like this…hoping they have deeper roots than the turf grass…better at holding the soil on the slope.

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The soil a few feet away from the chaos garden must be rich in humus since there seems to be a puff ball or two every year. This one is from last fall. I remember finding it when I was mowing the leaves! It has collapsed but somehow managed to stay relatively intact through the winter. Underground the mycelium is growing and decomposing the humus further with the help of microbes….the makings of healthy soil.

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The daffodils are up in the oak leaves, old day lily leaves, and tulip poplar seeds in our front flower beds. Maybe I’ll cut a few of the flowers this season to bring their springtime indoors.

There are the usual ‘weeds’ in the same beds. I recognize the mock strawberry. There is a chance that some of the others could be black-eyed susans which I  want for the bees and butterflies during the summer.

There are a few crocuses coming up. There are fewer every year. One came up last year out in the yard…the bulb probably moved there by a squirrel.

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I looked closely at the joint between the driveway and our front walkway – lots of tulip poplar seeds there. They had made enough ‘soil’ for a small clover and some mock strawberry to grow. And there was a worm using the crack as a highway between the lawn and the flower bed; it was heading toward the flower bed….a much richer place for the worm!

Finally, I checked the bush at the corner of the garage. I’ve been nurturing a young holly to take over for the old bush. I discovered a plant growing in the stump of the old bush…a sure sign that it is rotting. I’ll be cutting it closer to the ground and let the holly take over completely.

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Overall – these macro landscapes look more springlike than our trees at this point. I’ll wait a few more weeks to photograph the large scale spring landscape.

Ice Bubbles

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Sometimes there is a surprise opportunity for a photo shoot. Last week I was out putting seed in our bird feeder – and noticed that there was ice melting on the green lid of a bucket. Sycamore leaves and tulip poplar seeds had been on the lid before the snow fell… and were trapped in the snow melt that had refrozen overnight. The bubbles and pattern of water/ice were perfect for some quick photography.

I like finding things like this rather than trying to create them although there might be some value to creating some opportunities. Maybe as the cut flowers fade – I’ll experiment with immersing them in water and putting them in the freezer (now that it’s cleared out enough to have the space for this type of experiment) - creating ice bubbles and patterns to photograph.

Fall Foliage in our Yard

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The fall is in full swing around our yard. The oak and sycamore and tulip poplars are more than halfway through their fall. The red maple is about halfway through. I’m sharing our yard’s fall foliage in photos today….before we do another round of leaf mowing. This is the view from my office window…a pine on the left then a tulip poplar and then the red maple.

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At ground level in the back yard you can see the understory of spice bush (yellow) and the dark tree trunks (the red maple in the foreground); it’s been foggy on most recent mornings. The brush pile catches a few leaves.

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The maple does not seem to have as many pure red leaves this year. There is another maple behind the tulip polar that always turns yellow and I think one of the maple leaves below is from that tree.

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The tulip poplar leaves turn brown very quickly once they are on the ground so it is a challenge to get some with lots of yellow.

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I have taken a lot more sycamore leaf pictures this year. I’m not sure it is it the size variety of the durability of the leaves once they are on the ground. The leaves are large and leathery which make them easier to rake…and really need mowing keep them from killing the grass and clover in our yard.

The tree got a late start and didn’t manage to make very many seed balls because of the cold weather back in May…but there are certainly a lot of leaves to mow from that tree!

The Virginia creeper on some of our trees (oak and sycamore) and the exterior basement wall are changing color too.

The oak leaves that are falling now are brown…with an occasional flash of yellow.

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And then there are invasive ground plants that are changing from green to yellow and red. I would rather not have them….but they are hard to eliminate.

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There are things other than falling leaves that I found when walked around the yard.

A harvestmen spider

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Lady’s thumb (another non-native plant)

Deer trimmed day lily leaves at the base of the oak tree

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The micro clover is doing very well…still very green and spreading

A garden spider with 2 stink bugs in its web

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Spider webs in the azalea bush…maybe funnel spiders?

Overall – a lot of evidence of the season in our yard.

Wildlife in our Yard

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Lots to see on one wet morning….

A  gang of Blue Jays intimidated the squirrel from under the feeder… then called to their friends.

Some of them appear to be more in command  than others.

But they still are deferential to the Red-bellied Woodpecker at the feeder.

Eventually there were 6 Blue Jays enjoying the seed at our deck (with a female Cardinal at the feeder itself and the squirrel they had run off out in the yard).

After the Cardinal left, one of the jays contorted to get a few seeds from the feeder.

Then the Red-bellied Woodpecker returned, and all the Blue Jays flew away.

Looking out the front windows – there were 4 deer on our driveway and in the yard among the oak leaves feeding on acorns. There were two adults and two young that looked like they were getting their winter coats (the young ones appeared to like my neighbor’s Crepe Myrtle as well as the acorns).

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Watching Drawdown 2020 video. I’d heard about Project Drawdown in the Mid-Atlantic Climate Change Education Conference back in July; the project is all about how existing technology can address climate change….if we just apply it now. The video (recorded 9/21) is a little over 2 hours…and very well done. I watched it spread out over the day rather than in one sitting. The sound bite take-away for me: “Act like your home is on fire….because it is.” Earth is ours to save from ruin…and save ourselves as well. There are lots of ways we can do it!

Digiscoping. I practiced using our spotting scope with my phone to get magnified images (practicing before we are away from home). It involves a specialized case and connectors specific to the phone and the spotting scope models (available from Phone Skope). My husband ordered the gear for both of our phones (we don’t have the same type phone) and we can share the piece that is unique to our spotting scope. The assembly of the three pieces is easy enough and then the phone with the Phone Scope gear is put on the spotting scope. The friction fit is secure….so the spotting scope can be moved just as if it was being used without the phone attached.

I quickly discovered that I would need to take the cover off the spotting scope because I need easier access to the focusing knob!

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My first practice session was zoomed images of the forest behind our house….with the leaves beginning to turn. I used the optics of the scope as much as I could then zoomed the phone just enough to take away the vignetting….and celebrated the sunny day (after several wet and gray days).

Milkweed Bugs

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I am waiting for the milkweed bugs to mature and fly away from one of the last milkweed plants standing in the flowerbed. They have been transitioning to adult form over the past few days. I’ve been taking pictures when I first start my hour of working in the flowerbeds. On the 8th I noticed a few adults – but still a lot of nymphs.

On the 9th there were fewer nymphs and it appeared that some had just made the last molt to become adults.

On the 10th…more were making the transition – shedding for the last time. The blobs of clear ‘skin’ with black squiggles are the sheds.

By the 11th it appeared that they had all become adults. They’ll fly away to look for fresh milkweed and I hope they find it at the pond where the milkweed looks great – unlike the stalks that I am now cutting down when I don’t see any caterpillars or milkweed bugs on them!

After photographing the milkweed bugs, I get busy cleaning out flower beds (and trimming bushes. I takes me about an hour to fill the wheelbarrow, take the load back to the edge of the forest, and plan the work I want to do the next morning.

On the 11th I took a few pictures after I was done with the gardening of small things in our yard…a bit a nature before I went inside to stay cool the rest of the day.

Found on the Ground

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I walked around my yard and looked for interesting things on the ground. I was a little surprised at how many things I found! My rule was to not move anything…just take the photo as it appeared on the ground. Toward the front and north side of the yard, I found oak leaves from last fall that had blown into the garage, a wasp nest that had blown down from someplace, an arc of grass clippings, some plants overflowing into the concrete trough below the gutter’s downspout, an anthill, a sycamore leaf and some mushrooms in our neighbor’s yard (I used the zoom for the last one).

In the back and the south side of the house there were tiny yellow flowers (weeds), sycamore leaves (rust and decaying green), a cabbage white butterfly enjoying the tiny yellow flowers, a tulip poplar leaf, the invasive plants under the trees at the edge of the forest, a mushroom, some clover, a cherry leaf and water droplets on a weed.

It was a short walk on a morning that was heating up; already warm enough to have the cabbage whites active. I was glad there were still water droplets too. Overall – I’m always pleased that there seems to always be something interesting in our yard.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Looked at a reference from last week’s Zoom meetings… savored The MoMA exhibition Safe: Design Takes on Risk from 2004 (19 short audios and then pictures).