Brookside Gardens after a Rain

Before and after our session with the butterflies in the conservatory last week, I took short walks around a very wet Brookside Gardens. The stream near the entrance was flowing over boulders that have been added in past few years to control erosion. I took a picture up and down stream from the bridge. The vegetation has increased dramatically over the past month.

A squirrel enjoyed a nut on a low pine branch.

The old water garden has matured into a rain garden. I like the low growing plants spilling over the rocks.

The winds had blown a small branch of leaves out of a tulip poplar tree and into the parking lot.

There were wildflowers blooming along the boardwalk between the conservatory and the nature center.

My favorites were the Jack-in-the-Pulpit

And the columbine.

There were some very wet mushrooms growing on an injured tree trunk…covered with slugs.

Many of the ferns were already unfurled but there was a fiddlehead and unfurling frond that I couldn’t resist photographing.

There were some very wet irises in one of the formal gardens

But I liked the red poppies more.