Little Celebrations of Each Day

Finding a way to be happy about life is easier if we celebrate - even in a small way - each day. Sure - there will still be the more substantial celebrations that happen less often but, for me, the little celebrations are more closely linked to feeling happy.

I am starting a project to write down one thing I celebrated at the end of each day to become more overt about recognizing and acknowledging the little celebrations. I’ve looked back over my notes for the past few days and picked one thing that stood out. Basically - I have a lot to celebrate so picking only one thing may be the challenge rather that searching for something.

Yesterday the little celebration was seeing one of the heron chicks from Sapsucker Woods on the heron cam. It was such a short few months ago that the chicks were just hatched and looking very fragile in their high nest…with owl attacks.

On Friday, I celebrated being able to eat banana. This may not be a celebration for many people but bananas made me violently ill for many years and I only recently discovered that I can eat them again. They are a great ingredient in smoothies.

On Thursday, I celebrated because there were a lot more iris rhizomes in my garden than I thought there were. They had not bloomed very well in the weed clogged and shady location but they were still making rhizomes every effectively. They will make a beautiful display next spring/early summer in their new location.

On Wednesday, I finally got around to asking my husband here the converted videos from our daughter’s babyhood were located on his computer and did some early celebrating of her 23rd birthday by watching some video of her 1st.

What have you celebrated today?

Summer Morning Gardening

The gardening time rule-of-thumb for me in August is - every morning from 7-8 that it is not raining. There is always something that needs to be done and something unexpected to note. The unexpected yesterday was this beautiful little mushroom with its gray pleats and white filaments.

I’ve caught up enough on the weeds to move iris and day lilies that have not done well in their current location because a young sycamore has gotten big enough to deny them enough sunlight - and they were getting too crowded. I didn’t realize the extent of the crowding until I started digging them up and found very dense bulbs/rhizomes. Next year there will be lots of flowers in the sunny bed where I’m moving them.

While I was digging and separating - I thought about how these plants are part of my heritage. The day lilies were a house warming present from my mother-in-law when she moved in with us 23 years ago. She’s been gone for about 22 years now - those day lilies are a wonderful reminder of her. I’m glad I remembered to dig them up to take with us when we moved to our current house. The irises are descended from some my mother dug from her Texas garden; they had been very prolific in her garden and she planted the excess for that year in my Maryland garden….over 15 years ago.

There were other items I’ve added to the garden over the years that I happened upon as I was digging

A small chunk of pale green glass purchased in a shop on the road to Hot Springs, Arkansas.

Shells picked up on some beach

And tomorrow there are still more day lilies and iris to dig up and move!

Longwood Gardens in May 2012

Our visit to Longwood Gardens last week provided lots of images for blog posts. I’ve already posted one about the Catalpa Trees and Lilies and there are some other themed ones to come over the upcoming week or so. Today is a generic overview.

I always like the view down this shady pathway between the restaurant and the conservatory area. We almost always head to the conservatory right way since they only allow tripods (for photography) until noon so this is one of the welcoming views on the way.

And then comes the abundant richness of the conservatory. There are so many things to see - the children’s garden (even if you don’t have children), the plants that have been in the conservatory for a long time (like the Cherokee rose in the lower right), the bonsai display and then wonderful colors of other plants like nasturtiums and passion flowers.

Outdoors the tree houses are well established and truly in the trees this time of year. The tulip poplars are blooming as are iris, snapdragons, and jack-in-the-pulpits. The frogs were singing in the ponds….and one stayed still long enough for a photograph!

Previous Posts about Longwood Gardens: 

• Longwood Gardens in May 2012 - Catalpa Trees  
• Longwood Gardens in May 2012 - Lilies
• Botanical Images - October 2011
• Water Lily Pictures
• Squash and Gourd Images
• Orchids

Around our (Maryland) Yard in May

May is a ‘between’ month. Many of the spring blooms are already over and the summer ones are up but not quite blooming - with the exception of the iris…which are truly glorious in our back flowerbed.

The summer bulbs are up - dahlias and day lilies and blazing stars. Fortunately the deer have not decided they are delectable. 

 I have some stakes around them to discourage browsing but they didn’t keep the deer from the day lilies last year about the time. I’m keeping by fingers crossed.

The pyracantha is blooming. It will have a lot of orange berries in the fall.

And last but not least, the maple has a lot of leaves still unfurling that are reddish before they enlarge and turn all green. Many of the stems that held the samaras recently are still attached to the tree. They’ll be falling off soon.

Previous Months:

April 2012

March 2012

January 2012

Road Trip in May 2012 - Virginia

We just got back from a 3-day road trip to Shenandoah National Park. It was a little cool and wet but the wild flowers were wonderful. We started out referencing the park's wild flower weekend schedule (it's this weekend if you are in the area) then supplemented it. Now that I'm home I'm looking more at their wildflower web page to identify what is in my photographs! I'll post more of my photos of Shenandoah and Goshen Pass over the next few days. The ones today are just the intro!

First are some pictures from the Virginia rest stop. I took a similar picture of the 'welcome' sign back when I took my road trip in December. This one has a lot more green in it! It was also a little warmer and I enjoyed the iris that were beginning to bloom. I also noticed that the benches have the Virginia map shape on their backs - it was too wet to sit on though!

There were not many people at Shenandoah while we were there. It is early in the season and we were there on week days. The wet weather probably kept some people away as well. It didn't rain on us while we were out but there were plenty of muddy areas. It was good that the big panoramic views from the overlooks were not our primary objective for the trip because it was way too misty along Skyline Drive. The wildflowers actually are probably better in not-to-bright weather.

Just to give you a small sampling of what we saw - I've included azaleas and trillium photos in this post.

The cool weather is also great for roses and there were some at our hotel that looked so wonderful with their water droplets that I couldn't resist photographing them.

History of Botanical Print Making - Online Examples

Botanical prints have been popular since the beginning of books. They were intended to be educational and often show dissections of flowers or seed pods. They are often beautiful works of art as well.

Many of these old books have been scanned and are accessible via the Internet. I’ve created a time ordered sequence below and pointed to where you can find the whole book of similar prints.

Published in 1484, Peter Schoeffer’s Herbarius latinus contains simple drawings like on the right. The drawings clearly could not be used by themselves to identify a plant. This book was created not that long after the printing press became more widely used (i.e. the Gutenberg Bible was made in the 1450s).

In 1487, Hamsen Schonsperger published Gart der Gesundheit. An example showing an Iris is on the left; the color is rather primitive.  The images are embedded with the text rather than being on separate pages.

Hieronymus Brunschwig’s Das Distilierbuoch came in 1521. It has some plain drawings and some colored. The plain drawings show more detail than earlier drawings although some parts seem stylized rather than reflecting of reality as shown in the grape vine representation on the right. This book also include manufacturing type diagrams...it is a 'how to' book.

In 1546, Kreüter Buch, darin Underscheid, Würckung und Namen der Kreüter so in Deutschen Landen wachsen by Hieronymus Bock was published. The strawberries are easily recognizable. The color is a little better than in the 1400s example.

Skipping ahead to 1788 when Joseph Gaertner published De frvctibvs et seminibvs plantarvm the attention to detail had increased even more. 

In 1805, William Hooker published 2 volumes of The paradisus londinensis:or coloured figures of plants cultivated in the vicinity of the metropolis with color representations. While these volumes were focused on plants near London - the 1800s were a time of plant exploration around the globe and the botanical prints of the era made those discoveries more widely known with their realistic portrayals.

In 1818, William Jackson Hooker published 2 volumes of Musci exotici - with renditions of mosses. 

The 2 volume Florae Columbiae by Hermann Karsten was published in 1869. 

Medizinal Pflanzen was published in 4 volumes in 1887. I picked the dandelion print for the example from this book (on the right). Note the way the illustrator sought to fit as much as possible about the plant onto a single page.

In 1904, Kunstformen der Natur was published by Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel. This book has a wide range of prints, not just botanical. The one of pitcher plant is shown at the left. 

In 1907, Alfred  Cogniaux published the many volumes of Dictionnaire iconographique des orchidees. The prints are lovely and grouped by the classification of orchids at the time. My favorite orchids are the slipper-like ones.

This is just a small sample of what is available. The two main repositories that I’ve used are Botanicus and the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Both have many more volumes of botanical prints than I've shown here and I encourage you to browse through them. Both repositories have a similar online viewing design. The frame along the left side of the book browsing window generally shows which pages have an illustration (marked 'illustration' or 'plate' or 'tab', for example) so it is possible to skip to the pages that include prints.

Enjoy!

Around our (Maryland) Yard in April

It’s already April. We had some unseasonably warm days in March but now seem back into a more seasonable pattern. I took a walk around our yard this morning and created a montage of the pictures below.

So - the early April checkpoint for our yard here in Maryland is: The early bulbs (hyacinths, crocus and daffodils) are spent. The day lily leaves have recovered from the deer browsing so they may bloom normally later this spring. We have two tulips blooming in the same bed as the day lily greenery; the deer ate the rest down to the ground. The robins are very active and singing every morning. The maple samaras are about ready to fly - the lower branches have been thoroughly browsed by the deer so may 'self-prune' in upcoming months. The oak buds are popping from the top down. Our tulip poplar has a lot of spring green leaves and tight green flower buds all over. The iris green leaves are up already; they must be too tough for the deer since they don’t even have teeth marks. The tortoise that lives in that garden was out on one warm day but retreated when it got colder here during the past week; I didn't see him at all this morning. Our struggling azalea has a few blooms. 

Previous Months 

• March 2012
• January 2012

Brookside Gardens - March 12, 2012

The weather was sunny and warm this week. Brookside Gardens is brightening with some spring blooms - daffodils, crocus, cherries, deciduous magnolias and miniature iris. There were a few hyacinths but not the profusion of previous years. The tulips are not blooming yet although their leaves are growing and the display should be quite lush once they start blooming.

A pair of mallards swam on one pond and a lot of turtles  were very active swimming in another - playing their springtime tag.