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.

St. Louis Jewel Box

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The Jewel Box is a 1930s vintage greenhouse in St. Louis’ Forest Park. There was a major renovation in 2002 so the building is in excellent condition. The plants are primarily around the edges of the interior leaving space for weddings and other events. Our visit was on a Monday morning – the only other people we saw were people outside working on the water lily pond and the flowerbeds around it.

From the outside, the Jewel Box has the glass walls stairstep up to a flat roof. The framing of the glass panels has a blue patina. There are trees and grassy areas on the sides of the building…the water lily pond in the front.

Inside there were glass panels that divided the entrance area from the larger open area.

The fiddleheads of tree ferns always get my attention. The interior space was appealing – full of light…lush plants around the edges.

Getting to the Jewel Box required a short walk. There is no parking area close so we parked on Macklind Dr. and followed the sidewalk past a naturalized pond,

A nearby magnolia blooming profusely,

And plantings, including a columbine, in a shady mulched area.

Then we came to the lily pond in front of the Jewel Box. It was an opportunity to photograph them in the morning sun.

We took a different route back to the car after seeing the Jewel Box: past the Colonial Daughter Fountain

Then over to the Korean War Memorial that includes a sundial. We puzzled over the flag on the far left…realized later in the day that it was the St. Louis flag!

The short visit was well worth it – for the architecture, water lilies, learning about a part of Forest Park!

Vacation to Pensacola, FL

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Our trip from home (Nixa, MO) to Pensacola, FL in April was our most substantial post-pandemic vacation…three days in a place we had not visited before bracketed by long driving days. We thought we were used to long drives because of all the trips between Maryland and Missouri last spring associated with our move, but the non-Interstate roads and long rural expanses going to Pensacola made it a harder drive. The only rest stops were welcome centers when we crossed state lines; we made stops at fast food places and gas stations but sometimes they were further apart than we prefer.

It was scenic…with roadcuts and forests, rivers and fields. In Arkansas there seemed to be a lot of farmers plowing…kicking up dust; I’d seen so many no-till fields in recent years that the plowing struck me as a retro strategy (and one that obviously depleted topsoil). In Mississippi, we noticed a community with blue roofs; as we got closer, we realized the blue was from tarps and there were big stacks of fallen trees nearby; a police car monitored the comings and goings from the community. By the time we got to Alabama we were tired…glad we were getting close to our destination.

Our previous visits to Florida had been primarily to the Atlantic coast and Orlando. Pensacola had a deep South vibe. The military presence (current and historical) also influenced our perception of the area. We wanted to see the Gulf Islands National Seashore and several other natural areas – for birds and plants. We stayed at a hotel with a small kitchen…took advantage of the breakfast they provided and snacked in our room in the evening after having a substantial lunch while we were out and about during the day. There was a magnolia blooming near our room.

Overall – the trip was OK but not spectacular. We learned about ourselves as much as about the area:

  • A google maps time of 11.5-12 hours is too much for us to do in a day – particularly if the route is not mostly Interstates.

  • Spring is a great time for road trips….fall will be too. Summer is often too hot and winter weather can be problematic.

  • Birding festivals give us the discipline to get up and out early…into places that are harder to find on our own in an unfamiliar area of the country. We’ll register for a festival to structure our next trip.

I’ll be posting about our Pensacola vacation in the upcoming days….stay tuned.

Springfield Botanical Gardens – April 2023

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The uptick in vegetation is in full swing at the Springfield Botanical Gardens this month. We went on a morning cool/breezy enough to require a jacket with a hood and gloves. The early blooming trees and bushes (cherry, magnolia, quince), spring bulbs, and some violets made it worth the walk. The magnolias appeared to have been hard hit by the cold weather of the past weeks – with wads of ruined flowers; but some buds were evidently not impacted, and the few flowers were a taste of how grand the tree would have been without the cold weather.

As usual, I couldn’t resist some macro shots. In years past, I have often contented with very active bees, but the breezy cold must have kept them away. I didn’t see a single insect on the trees. The picture of the ‘open’ redbuds (last picture) was one of my favorites.

But – my favorite of the morning was the tulips. Not all the tulips were blooming quite yet…but these very bright flowers stood out in their brown mulch bed. I liked their color and spikey shape!

I am looking forward to seeing how the gardens change by May!

Our Missouri Neighborhood – March 2023

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The temperature has fluctuated wildly – from the teens to 70s this month. I took walks on two of the sunny days. We’ve had enough rain that the drainage into the ponds had running water on both days, and I stopped on the bridge to take pictures of leaves from last season in the rippling water. Oaks, maples, river birch, and red buds are represented.

There is almost always a pair of mallards about….and lots of robins.

Some branches from a magnolia in a nearby yard are upright in the pond. I wonder how long they will last…..or maybe someone is trying to root them (i.e. start new trees)?

The turtles are more active on warm days. They all appear to be red-eared sliders. Their snouts are usually all that is visible unless they are closer to shore or sunning on some high ground in the pond.

One day I started out in sunshine but there were more clouds than I anticipated. I took some landscape shots….experimenting with backlight and the curving walkway through the trees around our pond.

Some geese were on the walkway (and this time of year I give them space since they might be aggressive) so I went up to the street to complete the loop to my house. I noticed that the stormwater drain is labeled ‘no dumping – drains to river’ with a metal shield; in Maryland the labeling was painted onto the concrete.

The red maples are some of the earliest trees to bloom. The trees along the path don’t have low branches so my pictures of the flowers rely on my camera’s zoom.

Sometimes I photograph something because I didn’t anticipate it…the oak leaf stuck in the chain link of the tennis court is an example.

Another is the mats of algae on lower spillway between the two ponds. They had washed from the upper pond but are doomed to dry out on the spillway if another rain does not come soon. Still – they were ‘emerald isles’ at a time of year where there is still a lot brown in the natural world.

A Springfield, Missouri Yard

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My daughter hosted lunch last week at her house. While we were waiting for it to be delivered, I bundled up and walked around her yard; I hadn’t been there since she and I handled the fall leaves back in November. The day was cold, breezy, and sunny.

I enjoyed the textures and colors of the plants left from last summer: leaves of low growing plants in a protected bed with green veins, dry flowers, plants collapsed and curled by frost.

There were seed pods from redbud (a cluster still on the tree!), maple, cones, and magnolia (alas, all the red seeds were gone from all the magnolia pods).

I found myself looking for green – noticing moss and weeds on the brick/stone walkways,

Boxwood, other evergreens along the shady path on the east side of the house, and a fresh magnolia leaf wedged in a pile of leaves from last fall.

I was very pleased that the large piles of leaf mulch my daughter and I made around some of the trees stayed in place. She’ll have less to mow around the trees next summer!

Favorite Photos – 2022

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I picked some favorite photos from the year for a slide show. They are all outdoors. Thematically there are birds and insects more often than lizards or turtles. Some are documentation type pictures and others are artsy. They were taken in four states: Maryland, Virginia, Missouri, and Texas. For some reason – the fluffed up Eastern Bluebird is my favorite. Enjoy the show!

Road trip to London, Ontario (and back)

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When my daughter told me about a conference she was attending in London, Ontario in early October, I volunteered to go too – doing half the driving. Flying directly to the place was expensive and flying to Toronto necessitated some form of transportation from there to the smaller city (rental car, bus, or train). She liked the road trip idea, and I booked a room in the same hotel where she had. We opted to make the 14-hour drive over two days with the 1st day being the long one in each direction. Her employer provided a rental car.

My husband took us to pick up the rental car on the morning we were leaving. My daughter forgot her coat (and the forecast in Canada indicated she would need it) so a stop by her house delayed us a little…but I had an opportunity to enjoy the fall roses near her driveway and

The spectacular pods on her magnolia. Maybe we can harvest some of the pods when they have the red seeds in them to use in December decorations.

The first-day drive was a long slog – over 9 hours – and we passed from Central to Eastern time. We arrived at the hotel at sunset.

We had chosen a restaurant for dinner…but it had closed about 20 minutes before we got there! Fortunately, there was another one nearby that worked out just as well.

The next morning, we were up early. My daughter splurged on a huge cinnamon roll from the hotel’s breakfast. I had my usual dark chocolate then ate the rest of the carrots I had brought for the road (finishing everything that needed to be kept cool). We stopped at the Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory and Belle Island Aquarium…on the island in the Detroit River (more about that in subsequent posts). We had lunch on the patio at Ivy Kitchen in Detroit (Jefferson Street) afterwards. My daughter ordered a mimosa and was challenged for the rest of the lunch with wasps taking an interest.

We made it to London, Ontario by about 4PM having crossed into Canada at Sarnia and unpacked in our home-away-from-home for the next week. Since the rooms had kitchens, we bought a few groceries.

A week later, we go up before the sun. I took a picture of the sunrise just before I headed down to the parking garage with my luggage.

Google Maps routed use toward the border crossing between Windsor and Detroit rather than reversing our previous route. The route was like an interstate the whole way! A few things were different: the road number was on a crown rather than a shield, the ‘food’ symbol on signs included a cup/saucer with the familiar knife and fork, the speed limits were in KM and the gas plumps dispensed L of gas!

My daughter was driving so I was able to take pictures of the Detroit skyline while we went over the Ambassador Bridge back into the US. There was more traffic at the Windsor-Detroit crossing and it took longer than the Sarnia crossing a week earlier, but the ETA that Google had calculated for us must have taken it into account since we arrived at our hotel only a few minutes ‘late.’

The route crossed Michigan, Indiana and into Illinois. We were back on Central time.The next day was a shorter day and we got off early…arrived home in Missouri by noon! Both of us were keen to do laundry and otherwise get back to ‘normal.’

More posts over the next week about what I did in London, Ontario!

House Walk-through before Closing

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I stayed overnight with my daughter the night before we closed on our new home. It was calming to be in a familiar place, enjoy her yard between rain showers (roses, decorative water faucet, and magnolia with early blooms) and then have her drive me (rather than taking my very full car) to the walk-through of the house prior to closing.  

The form with space for notes about each room that I used when we had first looked at the house back in April worked well for this walkthrough. I wrote down anything I noticed: a ding in a wall that the movers probably made when they moved the previous owner (fortunately the paint was left in the basement so won’t be a hard repair), the blooms that I had just missed (a Japanese dogwood and a rhododendron), the two bathrooms that needed shower rods (the master has a glass enclosed shower), and loose weather stripping on the door to the garage. I also noticed that what I thought was just a microwave was a convection oven as well! Everything important about the house was as I expected.

I had purchased some furniture from the previous owner, and it was all in the house…plus a chimenea (a pleasant surprise sitting to one side of the patio.

It was too wet from the morning rains to walk around the yard, but I did go out on the patio. There were swallows nesting in the eves…with hungry young. Another pleasant surprise.

Overall – I felt good about the house…ready to go for quick lunch…and then close.

Zooming – November 2021

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Three locations for my zoomed image collection this month: Maryland (home), Texas (Carrollton), Missouri (Springfield). Enjoy the slideshow of the whole group then look below for thumbnails by location!

Maryland

Texas

Missouri

Fall in Springfield, MO

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I arrived in Springfield when the squirrels were eating the jack-o-lanterns

And many trees had just dropped their leaves. At my daughter’s house, the maple and oak leaves collected in drifts on the driveway/patio, a mixture of leaves were staying where they fell on the grass (needing to be raked or mowed soon), and redbud leaves lined the stone walk at the side of the house.

We spent an hour vacuuming up leaves on the hard surfaces while I was there and put the shredded leaves in beds around the yard. I’m not sure all the leaves will be so easily dealt with although many can be mowed into the yard.

My favorite plants retaining their leaves were the magnolia (with some pods still holding their red seeds) and the oak leaf hydrangea with its drying flowers and red leaves. I think the oak leaf hydrangea moves to the top of my list for bushes I’d like to plant at my house!

The hosta’s are responding to cool temperatures with a yellowing of their leaves – a last bit of beauty from the plants before winter.

After we were done with our yard work, we cut some of the last Asian hydrangea flowers to take inside…maybe they will retain some of their color as they dry out.

Overall – it was a beautiful day in Springfield before I continued toward home.

Zooming – September 2021

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The joys of a camera with optical zoom (rather than a phone with just digital zoom) --- I see more detail through the camera than I can see with my eyes! There were several times I was out and about looking for opportunities for high key and pushing the limits of the optics. Several of those experiments were successful enough to be included in this month’s collection.

Enjoy the slideshow for the September zoomed images!

Macros – September 2021

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My smartphone, a clip on macro lens, and Bluetooth shutter control were the gear I used for the macro photos feathered in this month’s post. They are all from a short walk in Howard County Conservancy’s Mt Pleasant from the parking area and into the Honors Garden. The set up works very much like the bridge camera (with lens, diffuser, manual focus) in that I must get close to the subject and move the phone to get the focus perfect. It has the advantage of being a lot more compact than the other set up!

The rain from the night before had left everything with a sheen or droplets of water. Often the wet increased the richness of the colors…and the shine. The thin clouds provided good, diffuse light – a good day for smartphone macro photography. The cedar was on my way to honors garden.

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The seed pods on the magnolia were not flat enough to be an easy shot! The depth of field is very narrow with magnification.

I experimented with different perspectives of cone flowers

And asters. In the last picture, the depth of field gave me the blurring around the edges than I wanted.

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The birds nest fungus was in a mulched area near the parking lot. Some of the cups seem to hold water!

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Even grass seeds take on a different perspective in a zoomed image.

…And these are the best of the rest (note the insect hiding inside a flower)!

Brookside Gardens in September 2021 – Plants

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Of course – the plants are always a big draw for a visit to Brookside Gardens – never an exception to that. I did a landscape shot of the garden area the hummingbirds come.

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There was a plant in that garden with various stages of flowers that captured my attention while I waited from the hummingbird.

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I never was able to find the hummingbirds perched in the magnolia even after I saw them fly into the tree…but the tree’s developing seedpods were good subjects too.

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There was hibiscus blooming in a big pot to the side of our position.

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Turning around – I tried to capture the colors in the castor plants – leaves and seeds.

It was beginning to get a little hot, so we walked toward some shade. I was glad I had my water bottole in the back pocket of my photovest.  I can easily shorten the monopod for carrying or keep it extended to use as a walking stick. As we walked toward the rose garden – I took a zoomed picture of a datura flower. I liked the white color…gentle curves.

Maybe I was a little fixated on white since I photographed white roses as soon as we got to the rose garden.

I opted to sit on a bench in the shade under the wisteria arbor and took the rest of the photos of the morning for there! The zoom capability of my camera (Canon Powershot SX70 HS) is one of my favorite tools. I love to experiment. As I zoom beyond the optical zoom, the images tend to get a softer focus (for example, the very magnified underside of a rose below….which is my favorite flower picture of the morning).

And that was (another) enjoyable field trip/photography session to Brookside Gardens!

Springfield Yard and Xeriscape Garden

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Last time I was in Springfield, the priority was getting my daughter moved into a new house – exhausting work. This time I am savoring the yard. I walked around several times….marveling at how beautiful it is, noting a few things that need to be done but nothing critical. It is relatively low maintenance. I am starting to think about the various areas as mini gardens.

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The Driveway Garden has two hollies flanking the extra parking area – a male and female. The female tree is full of green berries which will be red by winter…pretty and food for birds as well.

The Back Garden has a dogwood that may be problematic (some dead branches and overall not looking healthy) but underneath the Queen Anne’s Lace is blooming and some other plants (that will also provide food for birds. I’ve been watching a small rabbit nibbling on the plants around the brick patio every morning when I nibble my dark chocolate in the garden room. The hosta plants have already finished blooming. There are some legume type plants that are blooming behind some evergreens and a stand of poke weed that will have purple berries in the fall. There is a wood hydrangea that still has dried flowers from last year along with light grene flower clusters on the ends of this year’s growth. Overall – a lot of shrubs, trees and perennials…very little grass.

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The Side Garden has evergreens on one side of the stone walk and ferns on the other. I might move one of the yard chairs to this always shady area.

The Magnolia Garden is under a huge magnolia tree. There was some damage to the leaves from the extreme cold from last winter that I noticed last time I was here but those leaves were dropped and the tree looks wonderfully lush at this point - full of shining green leaves, developing seed pods and waning flowers. There are a few ferns and hosta under the tree. My daughter cleared away the thick layer of magnolia leaves and is planning to encourage (or plant) more of those types of plants under the tree.

The Front Garden is dominated by some big trees. The river birch and oak are the largest. The oak was probably planted when the house was built in the 1950s. Many other houses in the neighborhood have a large oak in the front.

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There is also an oak leaf hydrangea between the house and the big trees that is blooming; it’s a great shade loving plant!

We took a walk in the neighborhood to a city park that includes a Xeriscape Garden maintained by volunteers. Kudos to the people that do the work there! It is a mini-botanical garden. The arum seed clusters are attention getting! The variety of plants there would make it worth visiting any time except (maybe) the winter. I was pleased to see that goldenrod was included. There was also some sculpture among the plantings.

Overall – the gardens of the yard and the nearby Xeriscape Garden are something to look forward to see during future visits.

Brookside Gardens – Part 1

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Our visit to Brookside Gardens last week was early enough in the day that there were not many other people around. I found quite a lot to photograph so I am spreading the narrative and images over two posts (today and tomorrow). I took a picture of a fork in the path…the only landscape picture of the morning. The gardens are in early summer garb – the greens have deepened from the paler greens of spring. The flowers on the trees this time of year are white from a distance.

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The blooming trees that I noticed were: magnolias, Asian dogwoods (the natives are already showing their green seeds), and catalpas.

We took the time to walk around the paths near the Tea House. We saw several turtles in the water…they all seemed to be Red eared sliders which is not native to Maryland.

There were Canada Geese around but no goslings. I wonder how that was managed!

I didn’t see any of the larger butterflies…just some skippers and cabbage whites. The Wings of Fancy butterfly exhibit was cancelled for this year; hopefully, it will resume in 2022.

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Near the end of our walk, I took was some high key pictures of ginkgo leaves. It was a cloudy day…perfect for this kind of photography.

To be continued with tomorrow’s post….

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!

Mini Road Trip: Brookside Gardens – April 2021 (2)

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Continuing the photographic tour of Brookside Gardens from yesterday’s post….

I always make an effort to see the deciduous magnolias blooming at Brookside and they were at the top of my ‘to see’ plan for this mini road trip. The first one I saw was quite a shock. All the flowers had been destroyed by the frosts. The tree won’t be producing any seeds this year. The drying remains of the flowers were glowing in the morning light….interesting looking but ultimately not positive for the tree.

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I would occasionally see a tree that I thought might have escaped the frost damage

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But a closer look always showed that the flowers were damaged. The might still be intact enough to draw insects and maybe produce seeds.

At least one tree had buds that looked normal – the late bloomer might be the one with the successful seed production this year.

The tulips are the other big display in April. Some of the beds also had fading hyacinths. I like to photograph tulips that appear to be glowing from within….and there were several situations that provided the opportunity for that.

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Benches at Brookside always look appealing to me but I rare sit down. Usually I am walking around, taking pictures of anything that looks interesting. Maybe I should try something different next time I visit….pick a spot and sit for a bit.

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A project idea – maybe take pictures of tree trunks that includes the name of the tree (many of the trees at Brookside are labeled like this. It would be good to have as a reference.

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I always like the stone sphere sculpture. Sometimes there are early butterflies that warm up in the sunshine around it…but I didn’t see any while I was there.

On the way back to the car, I stopped again to photograph the lush horsetail bed at one corner of the visitor center….and that was the last stop of my walk. The parking lot was filling up  and I was glad I had come early enough to avoid the crowd.

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Grapevine Wreath

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When I was working in the front flower bed, I found a wild grapevine growing up through one of the bushes. It’s native but not growing in a place I could let it continue. I pulled it out but instead of carrying it back to the brush pile with the blackberry vines and grass and weeds….I kept it…thinking I would make a small wreath. I’d learned how in some class I had taken over 30 years ago; simply coil the vine and then twist until it holds the coil.

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I got busy with other things and didn’t remember my plan until the next day. It occurred to me that it would be its most flexible before it dried. When I examined it more closely, I realized that it had some small branches of the bush I had pulled it from; its tendrils were stronger than the twigs’ attachment to the bush. I untangled the twigs and then began the wreath making. I opted to make the wreath with the leaves intact – knowing they would dry up and be easily crumbled off before I would add a red bow or a sprig of holly next December. Of course – I might decide to put a red, white, and blue bow on it for the 4th of July.


Unique activities for yesterday:

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Pretty fly. It seems like every time I take a quick look at the front flower bed there are different bugs to photograph. This one was on the milkweed. I only got one picture before it flew away. The black lattice of the wings and the red of the eyes are quite striking. I used my usual technique: taking the picture with my cell phone as close as I could focus then clipping the part of the image I wanted to show with more magnification.

Fallen day lily. Sometimes the color deepens as the flower ages. The day lilies I brought inside are on the second round of flowers. The flowers start out a robust yellow and then are almost orange when they are ‘spent.’ This dried one is from the first round. It detached itself as the second round started.

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Cardinal nestlings. My sister sent me a picture from her house in Texas. The nest is in a boxwood by her front door! Now that we are all at home more, we have time to savor these natural events.

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Magnolia blooming. I love to photograph the big white magnolia flowers, but we don’t have a tree in our yard. My sister in Texas has one…and took a picture!

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