Longwood Gardens Ferns - September 2013

There are always a few ferns that catch my attention in the Longwood Gardens Conservatory. There is a Fern Passage that is lined with them. Usually I am focused on fiddleheads - those tightly curled beginnings of fronds.

This time I noticed one but was almost immediately more interested in the sporangia on the underside of the fronds. This is where the spores are produced that will become the next generation of ferns. The patterns of the fronds and the sporangia have a precision and symmetry that is quite appealing.

Brookside Gardens - June 2013

Brookside Gardens in June: lush greenery of ferns, azaleas and rhododendron mostly over as are the peonies, the lotus are still just leaves, the southern magnolias have buds, the foxglove grow up a hillside, the hibiscus and angel trumpet have been moved outside, the papyrus fills a high corner of the conservatory.

My favorite find of the day was some hollyhocks. I remember them blooming near the side porch of a great aunt - so I thought of her today.

Enjoy the Brookside slideshow for June 2013!

Brookside Gardens - April 2013

In mid-April - the deciduous magnolias were the highlight of Brookside Gardens. They come in many varieties although they are generally pink or white. The petals are generally large although there is one that had petals that curled like ribbons. Many times the petals are pink on the outside and white on the inward facing surface. Healthy trees are dense with blooms on otherwise bare branches.

The grounds were covered with new growth. Fiddleheads and native plants are coming up through the mulch everywhere in the gardens.

The tulips were just beginning to open and many of them looked like they had been damaged by the extremely cold weather in late March. I am always drawn to the blending of the yellow and orange tulip petals in the sunlight.

Fiddleheads

The fronds of ferns emerge rolled up - in a tight spiral that unfurls to turn into the greenry that always seems so luxuriant on the forest floor. I saw fiddleheads in biology textbook pictures long before I saw them growing. They were on the list of plant forms to look for along with horsetails and Indian pipes; none of them were easy-to-find in the part of Texas where I grew up because of the dryness and the city landscape. I found horsetails in Oklahoma and the other two in close succession when we moved to Virginia in the early 80s. The fiddleheads have become a continuing favorite for me over the years.

The shape is appealing. Spirals are like infinity into the past or into the future. The translation of that shape into violins and other stringed instruments is a reminder of the continuing importance of plant designs into our own creations; the pleasure in that shape must be deeply etched into the human psyche.

The tight components of the frond as they unwind have a gracefulness about them too. The compactness of the fiddlehead next to the mature frond is extreme. Mother nature is full of design tutorials that are effective and beautiful. Let’s hope that human engineers can approach their challenges with the same finesse.

The slide show below is a collection of fiddleheads from conservatories (Brookside Gardens most frequently) and our local woods. 

Brookside Gardens Conservatory - February 2013

The Brookside Gardens Conservatory is a warm, lush place for a pleasant winter afternoon. There are lots of colors to enjoy - dominated by greens. I always look for the spirals of ferns unfurling. There was some construction going on at the main door when I was there so it was more noticeable than usual that the smaller plants are moved around.

The tropical fruits I noticed in January - pineapple, bananas, and chocolate - were still there. And I noticed the star fruit ripening. The begonias always seem to be blooming and the variegated crotons fill their corner with their bright leaves. Camellias were full of buds - and a few early blooms. They’ll be spectacular in March. I even found myself appreciating the lettuce for its translucent green leaves with reddish margins. I usually photograph the bird-of-paradise flowers that are dominated with orange but this time I tried the white ones instead; they are very large and produced by one of the oldest plants in the conservatory.

As I was leaving Brookside an older woman ask me what there was to see at the gardens and I recommended the conservatory as a richness of plants to see and an easy walk. She was in her 90s! I hope she enjoyed her outing to Brookside Gardens.