Dickerson Park Zoo – April 2024

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My first trip of the season to the Dickerson Park Zoo was back at the end of March (post 1, post 2); my second was near the end of April when my sister and brother-in-law visited. Like the first visit, there were lots of peacocks wandering through the zoo; this time there were peahens too and there were some instances where it looked like the birds were either already incubating eggs…or getting a ‘nest’ ready. There was a male just past the entrance that was actively displaying for a peahen…moving both the upright tail feathers and the supporting structures behind the big tail. The birds were also vocalizing the whole time we were at the zoo.

Daffodils were replaced with irises blooming in clumps along the walkways and the sides of the stream.

I enjoyed the enclosure for flamingos, roseate spoonbills, and scarlet ibis.

There was one flamingo that was sitting and kept its head in the dirt…perhaps not feeling so well. All the other birds seemed to be active (particularly the spoonbills) and enjoying the afternoon.

I zoomed in on some feathers that had been shed in the enclosure. It is interesting that the feathers are white toward the base….very colorful in the part furthest from the body of the bird (when attached).

The trumpeter swans were on the pond as they were last time – perhaps a little perturbed by the tree trimming that was happening nearby.

Both the cheetahs and lions were out – and one of the cheetahs was moving around a lot. It could have been responding to the extra noise.

One bongo was relaxing while the other nibbled at leaves.

I zoomed in on the elephant’s eye – realized that they are amber in color. A keeper came to give hay to the elephant and asked if we had questions. I asked if all elephants have amber eyes and evidently that is the eye color for Asian elephants. The elephant is named Patience and she is a geriatric elephant; she likes to be alone rather than with the other female (they don’t get along).

I took another picture of the little elephant sculpture…probably my favorite sculpture at the zoo. I think the shiny top of its head is where people touch it the most!

It was starting to sprinkle but we wanted to see the giraffes. One of the young ones was intent on getting some grass near the fence.

My brother-in-law became mesmerized watching a little girl held by her mother feed the giraffes romaine lettuce; she was an expert…must do it frequently.

We headed back to the zoo store where my sister bought one of almost every item shaped like a turtle! It was a good finale for our visit to the zoo.

Kite and Pinata Festival at Springfield Botanical Gardens

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Last weekend the Springfield Botanical Gardens hosted a festival along with sister cities in Mexico and Japan – a Kite and Pinata Festival. It was well attended. There were people directing traffic into the garden when we got there, and we were pleased that we found a good parking place. There were already kites in the air! It was a sunny breezy day, perfect weather for the event.

There were food trucks and vendors. My daughter and I shared an anpan (a Japanese sweet roll filled with red bean paste)…tasty. I bought some Japanese earrings as well.

I noticed a new sculpture near the visitor center and took a picture of the butterfly part of it.

We walked around enough to notice the tulips were still blooming and couldn’t resist photographing them. I like the ones that are multi-colored. The ones with more than the usual petals seemed to be popular this year. I liked the yellow tulips with splashes of red/orange the best.

There was a dogwood in bloom. The wind made it challenging to photograph the blooms. I used the zoom; the light was so bright that the shutter speed was short enough to freeze the moving flowers!

There was a small stage where Mexican and Japanese themed performances were featured. The teenage girls performed well with mariachi band even in the wind…their colorful skirts attached to their wrists to keep them more controlled than the cowgirl dancers that kept loosing their hats.

Back at the visitor center, I checked their collection of hens and chicks. The colonies have survived the winter, and their colors are probably more vivid because of the cold.

We walked back to our car via the white garden and hosta garden.

I noticed the dragonfly mosaic is missing some pieces. I hope it will be repaired.

It was a great way to spend a Saturday morning. We opted to go to a restaurant for lunch because the wind, great for kites, was a bit gusty for eating outside.

Dickerson Park Zoo (2)

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Continuing about our visit to Dickerson Park Zoo…

The animal sculptures in various places around the zoo are interesting as sculptures…and sized to provide good climbing experiences for young children.

I realized about halfway through our visit…that I was somehow skewing toward photographing birds more than other animals. The grey-crowned cranes are one of my favorites in zoos I visit.

There were children feeding the giraffes….and I tried to get a picture of the youngest one. It is still the smallest…but growing fast; the adults don’t give the youngest a break at the feeding platform, but the human children try to hold out to feed the ‘baby.’

There were two white storks. I wondered if they had an egg.

The red ruffed lemur responded to a sound my son-in-law made…I took a picture through the glass of its enclosure.

The king vulture enclosure contained two birds…they have very unusual heads (the glass between my camera and the birds was not very clean unfortunately).

Several capybaras were relaxing in the afternoon sun. Just before I wrote this, I found out that my grandnephew had gotten a plush toy capybara at the San Diego Zoo on the same day as our visit to the Dickerson Park Zoo; what a coincidence!

Fine Art History (collection on Internet Archive)

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This ‘book of the week’ post introduces a collection found on Internet Archive that features slideshow collections of art works from artists from around the world and different time periods. There is a lot to browse in this collection and I will probably feature it again from time to time since I enjoy the images and learning about the artists. I have chosen 5 for this first post…hopefully the sample images will provide enough of an incentive to take a look at these artists and the rest of the collection.

Peter Beard (1938 - 2020)

Arctic Sculpture

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The 4 eBooks for this ‘books of the week’ post are from Canadian Arctic Producers Co-operative published in 1980 and include sculpture from Inuit artists in 1979-1980…grouped by village. I enjoyed the figures of the Arctic as a place and culture.

Pangnirtung, recent sculpture

Igloolik, recent sculpture

Clyde River sculpture

Coppermine : Sculpture

 I found these 4 eBooks by accident but recently did a comprehensive search for the publisher and found a lot more books so there are more to browse – which I will do over the coming months! These books are a great way to become more familiar with modern Inuit art. There is a Wikipedia entry for the Co-op too.

Branson’s Butterfly Palace

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Last week, my husband and I visited the Butterfly Palace in Branson MO – less than an hour from where we live. My daughter had visited several days before and recommended it.

There were butterfly sculptures and stakes along the short walk to the building.

We walked around the Living Rainforest Science Center first…then the Emerald Forest Mirror Maze. The maze was a bit more challenging than we anticipated…more fun too. But the big draw is, of course, the Butterfly Aviary.

Visitors are given a vial with a ‘flower’ on top that attracts butterflies. They sip the liquid (diluted orange Gatorade) while people walk around the aviary.

The paper kites seem to settle in on the ‘flowers’ and stay for the duration! It was very easy to take close pictures of them with my phone (one handed since the vial was in the other one!). My husband had more butterflies on his flower than I did on mine.

The butterflies in the exhibit were the same species as I’d seen previously at Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy in Maryland. There were some butterflies with iridescent blue wings (blue morphos?) but I wasn’t able to photograph them. I like the malachite butterflies a lot but, in this exhibit, the paper kites were the stars on the day we visited. There were fruit trays and sponges in sugar water for the butterflies….very few blooming plants. The paths were too narrow to allow for photography with other than phones…but many of the butterflies were stationery enough to get close with the phone!

There were some small rainforest birds that stayed in the trees around where their food was placed. They were as iridescent as some of the butterflies.

Outside the aviary the butterfly theme continued everywhere – chairs, artwork, on the walls. The butterfly chairs are surprisingly comfortable; I sat in one until the 3D movie about Monarch Butterflies opened for the next showing.

The store is large and had a good selection. I was surprised to find a new, sturdier stand for my large glass birdbath (I didn’t use it last summer because I was too worried that the stand was not stable enough)!

Zooming – October 2023

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The optics of my camera allow me to capture images that are better than I can see with my eyes – flowers, insects, birds, cave formations and seed pods that fill the frame…driftwood isolated from the noise of other things around it….sculpture, glass, and fall gourds specially arranged….sunrises and a sunset….the beauty of a fall morning. Every picture is a memory moment – a visual that also serves as a reminder of a place and mood and relationship with the people that experienced it with me. The places were mostly close to home in southwest Missouri (art museum, meadow, caverns) but also St. Louis and along the route between home and Carrollton TX.

Springfield Art Museum – October 2023

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One of my favorite places to enjoy with family that visits me is the Springfield (Missouri) Art Museum. This time it was the backup plan; we had originally planned a visit to the botanical garden, but the day was cold and wet.

The museum was not busy, but we weren’t the only people there. We wandered through the Tradition Interrupted exhibit (August 19-November 12). I enjoyed the pieces….recognizing many of the traditions and enjoying the descriptions about the way they were interrupted. Trying to capture the pieces photographically is always part of a museum visit for me; I keep a small camera that fits easily in my purse rather than lugging my bridge camera; it provided optical zoom giving me more options than my phone does. My favorite piece in this gallery is one called Teardrop (middle image below)…a metal piece that imitates embroidery or lacework. The lighting is part of the work and I was only able to capture the shadows immediately behind it; there were also shadows on the ceiling and floor!

The museum is also hosting a series of exhibits in collaboration with Missouri State University. The one showing now is titled Blue on White (July 22 – December 3) – featuring Chinese ware (with connections to Persia)…appropriated through imitation and export to Japan, Europe, and the Americas. Curated by MSU students.

The Creating an American Identity exhibit is a semi-permanent rotating exhibition from the museum’s collection of over 10,000 objects. The middle one below is an early Jackson Pollock – created in the 1930s before he became famous for ‘drip’ paintings!

There is a copper sculpture that I’ve seen every time I have visited the museum. It is difficult to photograph because the background is always so cluttered. This view is about as good as it gets!

The Survey of Ceramic Art is also a semi-permanent exhibit. Even if many of the pieces are ones I’ve seen before, I like ceramics so much that it is probably my favorite exhibit/gallery in the museum. This visit, I thought about how lighting of objects makes a big difference….but often reflections from glass cases is problematic; it’s more apparent in photographs but it distracts even when simply viewing the pieces.

I waited until the end to photograph the Chihuly chandelier in the foyer of the museum. It’s titled Autumn Persians and Feather Chandelier. I zoomed in to eliminate a spotlight; the lighting of the piece is required…but it can also be a distraction.

Most of the plantings around the museum were fading fast…and it was too wet to walk around for botanical photography.

The museum was a great way to spend a wet fall afternoon!

Sophia M. Sachs Butterly House

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After a day at the Missouri Botanical Garden – we headed to the Sophia M. Sachs Butterfly House near St. Louis MO the next morning. Its another facility that is part of the Missouri Botanical Garden. We were there a few minutes before it opened and walked around the outside gardens. It included a giant butterfly and caterpillar sculpture!

There was also a butterfly bench like the ones in Brookside Gardens in Maryland!

There were many fall plants blooming too – including cone flowers, butterfly weed, and goldenrod.

We entered the building as it opened. Everything had a butterfly theme – even a wall sculpture near the restrooms.

The conservatory is a year-round climate-controlled space for butterflies. We were familiar with many of the butterflies there because of our experiences at Brookside. Some of the butterflies were tagged – not sure why. We enjoyed watching the children with their families experience the butterflies – noticing butterflies in the air…looking to see them on the fruit or in the foliage.

The exit  from the conservatory leads to another garden with a water feature and sculpture of a child with butterflies on her hand and knee.

It was a good morning activity. We enjoyed photographing the gardens and butterflies (would be even more appealing in the winter when the conservatory would be pleasantly warm compared to outdoors) and we headed home afterward.

Dickerson Park Zoo

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We made our first visit to Dickerson Park Zoo last week. It’s on the north side of Springfield MO – the closest zoo to where we live. We got there about an hour after their opening; the close parking lot was almost full…others taking the advantage of the cooler than usual August morning.

Colorful birds seem to dominate my pictures. Many times, I was photographing through fencing; sometimes you can see the blur/shadow of that barrier.

The preening Scarlet Ibis was one of my favorites. The surprise was seeing the nictitating membrane (an eyelid that is hinged on the inner side of the eye and closes horizontally across the cornea).

Flamingos were in the same enclosure as the ibis – feeding and preening. They feed with their bill toward their bodies. One of the birds had a range of colored feathers.

In the trees above the flamingoes, there were several roseate spoonbills. Their bodies are colorful…their heads and large bills are bare – at odds with the body.

Peacocks (and pea hens) roam the zoo; they are relatively acclimated to people. There were no males with full tails. All the birds I saw appeared to be juvenile birds (younger than 3 years).

There were two Gray Crowned Cranes. I had seen similar birds at the St. Louis Zoo too. The birds at Dickerson Park Zoo were better positioned for a photograph!

The turkey enclosure had one male and a lot of hens…some immatures as well. I heard a mother telling her child that it was a mom and babies; I guess she thought the male was the ‘mom’!

Black swans are dramatic. The pair seems to have more ruffled feathers than I expected.

There were several parrots; we heard them before we saw them! The one I photographed was using its beak like an appendage for balance as it moved around its enclosure.

There were two types of tortoises in different parts of the zoo with signage that they bite! The first one was large but not giant…and I was intrigued by the pattern of the shell…plates like flatted pyramids.

The second was a giant tortoise --- looking well fed!

There were monkeys – somehow they tend to look sad to me. The one I photographed had companions that were moving about, but he was sitting still.

The zoo was working on the giraffe exhibit (they usually have giraffe feedings) so we did not see them like they would normally have been out and about in the morning.

The zoo has a rescued bald eagle – large but one of its wings was not right. It didn’t move from its perch but kept a watchful eye on movements outside its enclosure.

There were metal statues for climbing on (with signs warning that the statues might get hot in the summer) and backdrops for photographs.

There was one elephant with the explanation that when the matriarch died, the two remaining females did not get along…so they each are outside on their own. They get socialization time off exhibit with a male elephant.

There were other animals to see but not easily photographed. The big cats and bears were either in their dens or sleeping.

We didn’t ride the train (I photographed it with a giraffe sculpture in the foreground) – but I like that it is available – another dimension to a visit to the zoo that we might try on a future visit.

The Dickerson Park Zoo might be my favorite. It is not overwhelmingly big or crowned…and its design provides plenty of shade along the paths.

A Funeral and a Garden (2)

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Funerals offer a sense of closure…the end of a relationship. They are thought provoking too. I found myself savoring memories – thinking:

  • Of his career as it happened and then as I learned more about it over the years,

  • Of his role as a father to his daughter that was my age as well as his other children, a husband (and later caregiver) to his wife,

  • Of his growing tomatoes and catching huge catfish,

  • Of trips to state parks, amusement parks, and church camp, and

  • Of assistance making bug catching nets.

At the funeral I learned more about his love of golf and table games (dominos and cards) than I had witnessed in my growing up years.

The OSU Botanical Garden was a good place to continue my reflections on the lives of my father and his friend over the past 70 years – how the relationship was sustained.

There were unique ornaments in the garden. I wondered if the university’s art department had created some of them – the large metal botanical sculptures, the plates/bowls ‘flowers,’ and the standing frames that held pots or boxes of flowers. There was a garden chess set and a child sized table with chairs. There was a Japanese garden area with stone lanterns/frog house, large rocks, and small red bridge.

There were frequent water sounds from burbling fountains (sometimes rocks). Even the hose containers were decorated.

There were insects in the garden too – sometimes two in the same flower!

There were quite a few white-lined sphinx moths in the salvia. They were moving too fast for good pictures – although good-enough for identification!

My early morning hour in the garden was a good ending to the funeral thoughts before I started the 4-hour drive home.

Zooming – July 2023

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The photographic opportunities bulged with the addition of a trip to St. Louis along with the monthly trip to Texas…. local walk abouts in our yard and neighborhood…the Lake Springfield boathouse too. They all added up to a lot of zoomed images taken with my bridge camera (Canon Powershot SX70 HS). I enjoyed choosing which ones to include in this month’s post!

St. Louis Zoo

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After our visit to the Jewel Box, we spent the rest of the day at the St. Louis Zoo. We parked in the south parking lot and noticed the animal sculptures as we made our way to the bridge that leads to the zoo entrance.

The giant tortoises were out and the smallest one was moving about. I noticed one of the larger ones had a hole in its shell; was this tortoise shot at some point in its long life?

The Reptile House was one of our early stops beginning a big loop around the zoo (starting up hill first). The lizard peeking out of a tree in its habitat was one of my favorites.

At one of our first breaks, there were large catalpa trees with the long seed pods still green. It was good to see healthy catalpa trees again; my maternal grandparents had catalpas around their home and business in the 1960s --- seeing the trees triggered fond memories.

The Flight Cage is the oldest part of the zoo; it was built for the 1904 World’s Fair. There were quite a few birds in the large mesh-enclosed area.

One of my favorites was a wood duck. Was the eye injured or is that just the way a wood duck eye looks when it is closed/half open?

Leaving the flight cage – there are mosaics of natural areas.

Cranes were in habitats with other animals. I enjoyed getting different views of the one bird as it was feeding.

In the big apes area, my camera’s zoom managed to get a gorilla in the back of the habitat…looking serious and scratching his brow.

Flamingos and other water birds enjoy lakes with islands at the zoo…visible but able to get further away from noisy crowds. The pelicans are rescued birds (i.e. are birds that have a significant enough injury that they couldn’t survive in the wild).

I enjoyed the ways the zoo uses nature themes in their structures….and that they have solar panels too!

There is a carousel. It looked to be well-maintained but not busy when we were there (hence the pictures).

Of course – there is also ‘wildlife’ in the zoo that just finds the zoo a good place to be!

We enjoyed the people watching as much as the animals at the zoo. Some children obviously were locals familiar with the zoo and enthusiastically making their way to their favorite exhibits…couples with babies in strollers (with visions of the time their child would be old enough to make requests)…families clearly on vacation…older people – sometimes with grandchildren, sometimes as couples or small groups using the zoo as an interesting (and safe) place to walk.

It was a hot day and by about 3 PM we were ready for a cool down. We retreated to our hotel for a few hours before walking to a Lebanese restaurant for an early dinner. It was a day well spent.

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!

Laumeier Sculpture Park

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We walked around Laumeier Sculpture Park on our way to the hotel in St. Louis, MO. The park is convenient from I-44 which is the interstate we take from Springfield to St. Louis. The goal of the place (engaging the community through art and nature) is appealing and it was a good time of year to be outdoors. The first sculpture we saw was the cat near the parking lot….full of color and texture…welcoming form. The cat was a good start to our visit!

It was a warm (maybe hot) afternoon, so we carried a bottle of water and did a circuit that went uphill first, then down and shady on the way back as recommended when we picked up our map. We didn’t see every sculpture…but enough to enjoy the place.

I like sculptures in gardens. A few of the sculptures (the ones in the children’s area) are intended to be climbed on. My favorite was probably the large, connected balls (titled “Ball? Ball! Wall? Wall!) that made their way through a forested area. My imagination made it into a strand of beads for a giant.

Toward the end, there were urns of succulents that caught my attention. They were much more attuned to the hot weather than we were; I was glad to have the blast of the air conditioner going as we headed to the hotel less than 30 minutes away.

More about our touring in St. Louis, MO in upcoming days.

Wonders of Wildlife National Museum & Aquarium

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The Wonders of Wildlife National Museum & Aquarium is next to the Bass Pro Shops National Headquarters in Springfield, MO. It’s a place we passed by frequently over the past year but had not toured; the visit from my sister was a good prompt to finally buy tickets!

My main interest was the Aquarium but I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the museum portion – history of hunting, fishing, and conservation with sculpture, taxidermy animals/models in realistic habitats, paintings, artifacts (fishing lures, taxidermy versions of ‘largest’ bears, boats). The animal exhibits were a much-improved version of the Natural History museums I toured as a child and I found myself picking up details of the scenes….enjoying them more than I would a zoo where the animals so often look stressed and uncomfortable.

The aquarium has a living fish, of course, but there were also models of animals too. The sperm whale with giant squid was one of the first that I noticed. There were models of different kinds of sharks on the wall – making it easier to notice the shape and size differences.

One of the larger tanks had a ‘shipwreck’ theme. I took a few pictures as we walked through the aquarium areas. The octopus tank seemed small for the animal…hopefully there was another space that gave it more room to move about.

The jellyfish were probably my favorite exhibit. Their shape and movement are somehow calming…and I’m always surprised at how different they can look.

There was also a smaller exhibit with different kinds of coral.

Toward the end of our tour, there was an area for lesser flamingo and a great egret. It was relatively dark. I liked the picture I took of the egret…but I wondered if the birds were rescues since a dark habitat is not what I associate with these birds. Earlier on we had seen some great horned owls that were rescued birds. Their habitat allowed them to be well away from the people and they seemed calm enough…but probably very different than they were in the wild.

Overall – an interesting place but I’d rather be outdoors. Next time we have someone visiting, I want to visit Dogwood Canyon Nature Park.

London, Ontario Tree Sculptures and Murals

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Like many small cities, London, Ontario has street trees to break the monotony of concrete, asphalt, and brick. The tree sculptures make it different. They are positioned along the streets in similar positions that real trees might be desirable, but the sidewalk is too narrow or there is some reason that a real tree would not thrive. The pole (trunk) and the ‘canopy’ of the sculptures take less space…and they will be the same size year after year. I enjoyed the sculptures in the early fall and realized they would make the streets more colorful and appealing in winter when the real trees nearby would be without their leaves.

The city has buildings of various ages…some over 100 years old. Murals have been painted on some of the brick walls.

The sea mural was the largest…partially hidden by a construction project.

My favorite was the mural across from it – also partially hidden by the construction project.

Overall – the sculpture and murals always made my walks around the central part of London, Ontario more interesting!

Brookside Gardens – May 2022 (1)

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My daughter and I took a stroll through Brookside Gardens when she was here last week; we both savored it – anticipating that it would be a long time before we were back…or maybe it would be the last time. There was plenty to see…starting with the spring bulbs in the parking lot rain gardens. I noticed that the new growth in the stand of horsetails near the visitor center is a lighter green.

The new growth of ferns contrasts with the greens around it. The glossy green bushes in the background are camellias that are completely done with their blooms.

The rhododendron blooms are past their peak. There were some flowers that had been knocked off by the rains of the previous day.

The spiral walk in the 2009 anniversary garden is less distinct with the spring growth than it was in the winter.

The new sculpture made from the trunk of the sycamore that had to be cut down (uphill from the conservatory) is well done – representing some of the trees that are prevalent in our area: oaks, pines, maples.

My daughter hadn’t seen the other more recent sculpture…liked it as much as I did.

It’s easy to like flowers – big and small…lots of them to enjoy this time of year.

We didn’t go into the Tea House since there was a yoga class in progress. I settled for a cypress (with reflection) picture from the path.

Another new-to-me feature of the garden…that I photographed near the visitor center: mobile sculptures. They stand out now…will even more in the winter!

More about our visit to Brookside tomorrow….

Mizumoto Japanese Stroll Garden

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I’d been to the Springfield (Missouri) Botanical Garden before…but not the Mizumoto Japanese Stroll Garden part of it. It was a treat to see it during a free afternoon on our quick trip to Springfield to see our new house.

It was a cool, sunny spring day…not as Zen as the garden probably is on most days because the mowers were at work. The noise does not ‘show’ in the images, so I find myself enjoying the gardens even more via the photos! I was on a mission to photograph the lanterns/sculptures of the garden.

Next time I go – I will stroll. I’m planning to become a member of the place after we move and visit frequently.

Brookside Gardens – March 2022

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I walked around Brookside Gardens on a stereotypical March day – breezy and in the mid60s. Last time I had been there (back in January), we had parked near the visitor center; I opted to park by the conservatories this time. The first thing I looked for was skunk cabbage under the bald cypress in the area between the gardens and nature center. I saw green leaves…only one group of spathes and they were in the water!

There were groups of spring flowers beginning to bloom: miniature iris, snow drops, crocus, and marsh marigolds. The daffodils were still in bud stage.

The new sculpture I noticed in January was even more appealing this time: the day was sunny and the reflective inner coating made in glow for within. In January it was a very cloudy day, so the effect was not visible.

I was surprised that there were two large trees that looked like hollies but their berries had not been eaten by birds. Are they a hybrid that is just for show….not providing food for birds after a few freeze/thaw cycles?

The non-native witch hazels (and hybrids) are at the height of their blooming now. There are yellow and orange and red…clouds of color in the ‘forest.’ Witch hazel has become one of my favorite trees. I’ll probably plant one or two at my next house!

There were dried wood hydrangea flowers that got into the stream! Some were being carried along by the water. I was surprised that they were still so intact.

Camellias bloom this time of year. There was a sign reminding people to stay on the paths rather than stepping into the mulch around the plants!

As I made my way back to toward my car, I walked to the Brookside 1969-2009 commemorative garden near the entrance gate to the conservatory parking lot. I noticed a new (to me) spiral path to a bench and

Plants growing under the bald cypress.

Stay tuned for 2 posts featuring macro pictures I took with the clip-on lens + my cell phone coming next week. Here are a few broader views taken with the bridge camera that I enjoyed looking at and photographing with the macro lens later: cherry blossoms, vine on wall, golden deodar cedar pollen cones, and Lenten roses.