Brookside Gardens in November 2012

Brookside Gardens in November is sliding toward winter. Most of the trees have lost their leaves. There are a few maples still holding their red leaves - like the tree near the tea pavilion at the left.

I’ve selected my favorite photos from the rest of my walk through the gardens for the slide show below.

There was one rose bud trying to unfurl in mid-November and new red leaves were at the tips of the rose bush stems. Some pumpkins and other squash that had been inside the conservatory in October had been moved outside to make way for the model train exhibit that will open later in the month. Kale - purple and green - is planted to give some color through the older months to come. Mallard ducks are enjoying the ponds. And - there are still plenty of yellows, reds and greens to enjoy.

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - November 2012

Back in mid-August I posted about finding things to celebrate each day. It’s an easy thing for me to do and getting into the habit of writing it down each day reminds me to be grateful for these and a myriad of other things in my life. Here are some ‘little celebrations’ I’ve noted this month:

NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) starting. I had my outline and spreadsheet of character notes ready to go; it was a relief to finally start writing on November 1. I celebrated at the end of the day because I had successfully reached my goal of 3000 words.

Hot chocolate on a cold day. I celebrated that there were packets of hot chocolate mix in the pantry left from last winter. It is a nice contrast to hot tea.

Raking finished in the back yard. I celebrated even though I knew that it was only ‘finished’ for the day. There were still too many leaves on the trees.

Forest near at hand. Even though I live in an area that is full of houses and businesses, there are forested areas too - along the rivers and creeks, around catchment basins, in the medians and along the sides of roads. The forest has the effect of hiding the population density - a cloak of beauty over whatever flaws our ‘civilization’ has made.

The election. However fractured we are politically - the US held an election that told us more about ourselves than the polls had been screaming for months in advance. That is something worth celebrating.

Brookside Gardens could be on my celebration list every month of the year. There is always something new to see. The ‘river of leaves’ under the gingko tree was one of my favorite images this month.

Perfect score on a weekly quiz. I took a Coursera course on Obesity Economics and finally - managed to get familiar enough with the jargon to do well on the 3rd of 4 weekly quizzes.

50,000 words mark on my NaNoWriMo novel. The NaNoWriMo goals if 50,000 words and I managed to write them in the first 12 days of the month - and discovered I still had a lot of my outline to go. It took me another 7 days and over 20,000 words to finish the outline. I have had mini-celebrations all along the way; there are so many personal firsts.

A family medical emergency that ended well. I had a family member than was rushed to the hospital - had surgery the next day - and went home two days after the surgery. It was an emotional roller coaster for a few days….but turned into a series of little celebrations.

Gift wrapping. I volunteered to gift wrap packages at a local Nature Center shop to advertise the Friends group for the Center. It’s a great way to start off the holiday season - and I learned how to make a pretty bows with paper ribbon.

Previous ‘little celebrations’ posts can be found here.

Ready for the Light Show at Brookside Gardens

Brookside Gardens looked close to being ready for the annual Garden of Lights Winter Walk that starts the evening of November 23 and continues through January 6. Last weekend we walked around the gardens during the day to see how the light features are created. Favorite features from previous years were obvious: the hyacinth lights, the sea serpent in an emptied reflecting pool, animal forms (frog and lion pictured below…but there are many more) and flowers of all shapes and sizes. Several new items we noted used recycled plastic bottles as reflectors and diffusers of lights. I’ll post again when I see how they look at night.

Brookside Gardens Pumpkin and Squash Display 2012

In keeping with the Autumn Harvest theme Brookside Gardens has a display of pumpkins and winter squashes. The image at the left is the big picture view of largest display and the slide show below contains close-up views. The colors, shapes and textures are quite diverse. My favorite is the one with cream background and red markings (seen in image 1 and 3 in the slide show). 

 

Brookside Gardens Chrysanthemum Display 2012

Brookside Gardens has chrysanthemums in the conservatory and in the outdoor gardens. The ones on forms in the conservatory were just beginning to open when we were there on 10/26.  They’ll last well into November. The slide show below shows the variety of mum types on display and in full bloom when we were there. It’s a celebration of chrysanthemums!

Brookside Gardens Roses

Roses always love the cooler temperatures of fall - and the ones at Brookside Gardens were no exception when I was there last week. The color in other parts of the gardens was from fall leaves….and the lights the crews were installing in preparation for the Garden of Lights which will be from November 23- January 6.

Enjoy the slide show!

Brookside Gardens in October 2012

October at Brookside Gardens - fall and the always lush conservatory plantings. This post is a quick sweep of plants from the conservatory and fall foliage in the rest of the garden. I’ll do some themed posts over the course of the next week on roses, gourds/squashes/pumpkins and mums.

The collage above shows plants in the conservatory. The bird of paradise always seems to be blooming. There were several grasses with large seed heads; the one in the lower right of the collage has a lot more color than some of the others. The shape of the uncurling leaf to the right is what caught my attention….and the lighting heightens the effect of the curves and color. The images in the collage below are all from the outdoor gardens. One of the few bushes blooming in the outdoor gardens was a fall camellia; otherwise the color is from fall leaves. The shelf fungus at the bottom right is on a stump I always check. The colors are more subtle than the fall leaves; the shelf fungus will stand out more in winter when all the fall color has faded away.

The collage below has two of my favorite trees - the sweet gum against the sky and the gingko in the lower left. The tea house with the colorful maples and the still-mostly-green papyrus in the pool complete this collage.

Brookside Gardens in September

Brookside Gardens in September is making the transition to fall. We went first thing in the morning; the temperature was decidedly cool. Here are the highpoints of what we saw: 

• Red magnolia seeds
• Fall crocus
• Coleus - some in bloom
• Dogwoods turning and one already in full fall reds
• Roses - they always get a second wind as the temperatures get a little cooler
• A walking stick on the ‘switch grass’ sign 

Enjoy the slide show!

Variegated Crotons at Brookside Gardens

The garden or variegated crotons are colorful residents of the conservatory at Brookside Gardens. Sometimes they are simply a backdrop for changing displays. At other times they are some of the main color for their quadrant of the north conservatory. The pictures below were captured on the same day as our tour of the butterfly exhibit.

It’s interesting that the new leaves are most often green and that the different plants vary not only in color but pattern of color. Green, yellow, red, orange….the whole range of colors can be found on a single plant!

Butterflies at Brookside Gardens

This week is the last hurrah for the annual butterfly exhibit at the Brookside Gardens south conservatory. There were still a lot of butterflies to see. It was the first time I’d gone with a camera - and I found that I enjoyed it more while I was there and now that I am looking at the photos again. My more challenging shot was of the blue morphos (to the left) because they so rarely stay anyplace for long with their wings open. Enjoy the slide show below of my favorites for the photos my husband and I took!

Brookside Gardens - August 2012

Brookside Gardens in August - the plants are hanging on in the heat, making seed pods. There are quite a few with lots of buds brought on by the recent rains and the coming reduction in temperatures. The textures and shapes that I focused on during my walk included: 

• Fan-like gingko leaves
• Pleats of the yellow petals behind a fuzzy bee
• Folds of a hibiscus petal just opening
• Feathery papyrus
• Curved path through the rose garden and purple crepe myrtle
• Overlapping of petals of an old rose…the tight furl of a bud
• Compartments of a lotus pod
• The compactness of a passion flower bud
• The ripples behind two ducks

Gingko leaves

Bee

Hibiscus petal

Papyrus

Rose garden path

Old Rose

Lotus pod

Passion flower bud

Ducks

Brookside Gardens Reflections - July 2012

On a cloudy day at Brookside Gardens - after a rain - there were plenty of summer reflections.

The reflections of the treetop canopy by water filling the depression in a boulder marking a path 

Cattails and thick vegetation along the edge of the pond reflected in the water

And the panorama of the Japanese Teahouse and hill behind reflected in the pond as some Canadian geese swim into view.

Magnolia at Brookside Gardens

Earlier this month I posted some photographs of Southern Magnolias from Texas, Arkansas, and Tennessee. The photographs in the slide show below are all from one tree in Brookside Gardens in Maryland taken in the early morning of 7/20 after a good soaking rain the night before. The sign at the base of the tree (picture at right) said that is was a Magnolia virginiana var. Pumila or a Dwarf Sweet Bay. This one tree had all stages of the bloom - from bud to the bright red seeds popping out of the pod.   

Enjoy!

Brookside Gardens Lotus Blossom - July 2012

On Friday (7/20/2012) when we made our trip to Brookside Gardens - the only Lotus blossom was facing into some leaves and too far away to photograph…but there were buds.

On Sunday (7/22/2012) when we returned - after almost 24 straight hours of rain - one of the buds had opened fully. I took a number of pictures and noticed that there seemed to be a lot of bees coming and going from the flower.

The only way to see inside the flower was to reach as far as I could and point the camera into the flower from above (in other words - taking the picture without being able to see the screen of the camera at all). The best one is below. It clearly shows that bees love lotus flowers! I think there are 6 bees visible!

Brookside Gardens Cloudy Day - July 2012

Brookside Gardens - high humidity relieved a bit with an occasional breeze - was between rain showers. We were there first thing in the morning before the heat of the day became overwhelming and the water droplets dried. The gardens were lush with greenery even though there was still some visible damage from the storm in early July and the more recent rains: freshly cut marks on some trees where limbs had broken, trampled high grass and buds nibbled by deer that got in when part of the fence was down, mulch washed to the side of paths leaving mud behind. I particularly liked the papyrus in pots in one of the pools and the garden with a low wall looking toward the wisteria arbor and tall trees beyond.

The slide show below includes my favorites of the closer study pictures: flowers with water droplets and shiny from overall moisture, a small stem of leaves blown into a pine, water droplets on a large leaf, and a classical looking tree trunk.

Summer Lotus

Over the past month, I’ve seen lotus plants in two separate gardens and photographed them. The pink ones were in the Dallas Arboretum (with the Chihuly glass) and the white ones were in Brookside Gardens in Montgomery County Maryland.

I like the big leaves of the lotus. They 

• Are almost circular.
• Curve into a shallow bowl to capture a pool of water in their centers when it rains.
• Unfurl like lily pads, starting out in two curls toward the center.
• Are veined from the center outward.
• Flutter gently in the breeze on their long stalks that are anchored in muddy shallow water.
• Have gentle waves around their edges. 

Enjoy the lotus slideshow below!

Brookside Gardens Buds - June 2012

Brookside Gardens is full of summer potential judging from the buds seen throughout the gardens. I'll enjoy the open blooms when I visit again in July.

Brookside Gardens Insects - June 2012

Brookside Gardens is a treasury of photogenic insects this time of year. My collection from my June visit is below. I expect in July there we'll be more butterflies...and hummingbird moths.

Brookside Gardens Flowers - June 2012

Brookside Gardens is full of green...and a few flowers now that the spring bulbs are spent. The collection of images below show a few of my favorites.

Azaleas Are Blooming

The azaleas are blooming a bit early in Maryland this year but they aren’t past their peak…so you still have time to enjoy this aspect of spring if you live in the area. Brookside Gardens and the WSSC Brighton Dam Azalea Garden are my favorite places for azaleas. if you can't get there to see them for yourself --- enjoy the pictures below.

This first series of pictures is from Brookside Gardens on 4/7. There were still lots of bushes with buds still to open. I expect that there will be lots to see for at least another week. 

The pictures below are from 4/14 at the Brighton Dam Azalea Garden. They have even more bushes that are yet to reach peak bloom. The ones closest to the road are the ones most fully opened at present.

Also at Brighton Dam - there is a lovely dogwood on the path going left from the entrance. I’ll share dogwood pictures later this week.