Zooming – May 2025

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May was full of blooms both in my yard and places I visited close to home: Springfield Botanical Garden, Springfield Nature Conservation Center, road cuts along US 65, Harold Prairie, Noah Brown’s Prairie, and Linden’s Prairie. I am realizing that the work I did to create a new shade garden (with American Spikenard and hostas growing in pine needle mulch) is a magnate for fledgling/juvenile robins….such a joy to see them from my office window. The month was a great one for being outdoors – even if it meant dodging thunderstorms!

New Plants (in my yard)

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I added 4 new native plants to my yard recently: a red buckeye, another American Spikenard (the first is almost 2 years old and is doing so well that I wanted a second plant for another shady place), and two (eastern red) columbines.

The red buckeye was in the largest pot and I planted it first – on the east side of my house with violets growing almost all around it. I put some wood ships from mt daughter’s tree trimmers around the base. Right now the American Spikenard that is nearby is taller than the buckeye but that won’t be for too long. I hope it gets a good start this year and will – in years to come – attract hummingbirds when it blooms and shade the violets and spikenard through the hottest part of the summers.

I took a break from planting and trimmed the small branches that were at too narrow angles from the main trunk on the two young redbuds that came up in my yard…and that I am letting  grow.

I had the two columbines and the American spikenard still to go.

The spikenard’s new home is on one end of the hosta garden. The area is between hollies and a eastern white pine….shady all the time. I propagated the hostas from dense beds that were planted before we bought the house and now there will be an American Spikenard there too. It will be towering over the hostas by next year!

I planted the two columbines in an area I had planted some milkweed last fall…but it didn’t come up. So now there are two columbine plants there…with mulch around them. The area is sunny for most of the afternoon.

There is a shortleaf pine nearby and I noticed some spring developments on that tree as I gather up my tools and the emptied bin from the wood chip mulch.

The yard is changing – little by little – into the yard I want…less grass and more variety of plants and animals!

Geology Field Trip (1)

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The geology field trip associated with the university class I took this spring was cancelled because of weather, but the one that was a follow-up to a Missouri Master Naturalist lecture happened on a beautiful spring day in early May! We started out at the Springfield Conservation Nature Center…the longest hike of the trip with stops along the way to see examples of

  • (Chert nodules)

  • Sedimentation – erosion and deposition

  • Soil creep

  • Bluffs and rock fall

  • Spring

  • Sinkhole

  • River meandering

Most of my pictures were not about geology! I noticed the turtle and water plants in the sedimentation area. It is easier to take pictures of landscapes than geologic features. The hike was over boardwalk and forest trails. The only place the trail was muddy/wet/slippery was where the spring water ran over it. Overall, it was a great hike…and I was ready for lunch afterward. If I do the hike again on my own, I will take it a bit slower; I’ve learned that my knees get sore with a lot of walking on uneven surfaces.

The botanical highpoint of the day was wild ginger in bloom!

A jack-in-the-pulpit was a close second.

From a tree perspective, seeing a young sassafras and a black locust in bloom was great too.

Near the nature center – there are plantings of native wildflowers. They had a cage around the lady slipper orchid that was blooming.

More tomorrow on the rest of the Geology Field Trip…

Springfield Botanical Gardens – April 2024

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I made my second visit to the Springfield Botanical Gardens in late April when one of my sisters was visiting; my husband and I had gone to the Kite and Pinata Festival earlier in the month. The tulips had been in full bloom during the first visit. There were a few left in late April, but the irises and columbines were the big show. I noticed some native honeysuckle and clematis blooming as well. I made it a goal to make a walk around the gardens at least once a month until cold weather comes again next fall. There will always be something new to see.

My sister and I walked through the Mizumoto Japanese Stroll Garden after viewing the gardens close to the Botanical Center building. I used my Friends of the Garden membership in lieu of the admission fee. I made a small cairn on one of the posts near the rock garden…this time choosing the same type of stone for all three rocks.

The Japanese lanterns are always some of my favorite photographic subjects in the garden. I like the greenery around many of them. The pines are there all year round, but the grasses and yellow iris are only around during the warm months.

The yellow iris grow around the ponds – along with the bald cypress knees that always make the water’s edge look more interesting.

It was a good way to spend a couple of hours….enjoy the beautiful gardens and get in some steps for the day!

Springfield Botanical Garden – April 2022

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The tulips were beginning their big bloom at the Springfield Botanical Garden when I visited in mid-April. The sunny day made their colors pop. Much of the rest of the garden may be just waking up but the tulips are in their glory.

The Master Gardeners were out working to get the demonstrations gardens prepped for the season….it was a dry day between two days of rain.

We walked over to the garden’s Botanical Center….more tulips in the planters and a surprise: columbines! It was windy but I managed to get a passable photo.

Mt Pleasant Field Trips

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Schools didn’t end until June 21st in our area so the Howard County Conservancy spring field trips were still happening into mid-June! As usual, I volunteered for field trips at both Mt Pleasant and Belmont. Today I’ll share some pictures I gleaned from before the school buses arrive at Mt. Pleasant….tomorrow I’ll do the same for Belmont.

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In late May – I noticed how lush everything was looking: the sweetbay magnolias, the blue flags, peonies, the new plantings around the flower pot people, and the trees along the gravel road toward Montjoy Barn.

By early June the flowers in the Honors Garden, like the columbines, were blooming.

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But the big draw of the Honors Garden – for me and for the children on field trips – were the green frogs in the pool. I would talk to the students before we came near the garden about walking very quietly…not talking…as we approached the pool so that we would see frogs. And I challenged them to find more than 4 frogs (or however many had been seen with my previous group). One group claimed to see 7…but I only saw 6. The pictures in the slide slow below were taken over several mornings before the buses arrived. Green frogs sound a little like a rubber band being strummed. It was fun to share the sights and sounds of the frogs with my hiking groups!

Brookside Wildflowers

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I enjoy the boardwalk between Brookside Gardens and Brookside Nature Center in the spring. Earlier this week the boardwalk was my short walk before by shift in the Wings of Fancy exhibit. There are many native plants in this area that are looking good this spring. The plants are growing luxuriantly at this point – many in bloom.

Clumps of columbine

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Jack-in-the-pulpit (but they are green…sometimes hard to see)

Mayapples (the flower is sometimes hidden under the umbrella of leaves)

Skunk cabbage (with cypress knees poking up among the leaves)

Several kinds of ferns

Forest azaleas

And others.

Of course there are birds too….red-winged blackbirds are calling everywhere and robins are searching leaf mulch for a tasty worm!

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It was a productive 10-minute photo shoot!