Brooklyn Botanic Garden
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Geothermal Well
I’d like one of these. At the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s new Visitor Center, “Twenty-eight geothermal wells will heat and cool the building; they will be supplemented by the utility grid only as needed. The building is also nestled into the surrounding hillside, which helps provide insulation.”
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Native Flora Garden
In the Brooklyn Botanic Garden yesterday morning. It was still dripping from the rain under the trees, even though it had long since stopped raining. Our woods in leaf always hold onto the rain. Next to the present NFG, the Garden is working on a major expansion to allow for less shade-dominated habitats found in…
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The Weekend in Blooms
Bursting out all over the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, azaleas (genus Rhododendron). Meanwhile, the hawthorns (genus Crataegus) in Prospect Park. Also in Prospect, some other kind of azalea. Butterflies, ladybugs, flies, and bees were happy to see these blossoms, too.
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Skunk Cabbage
Exciting news: the Native Flora Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden is expanding by two more acres, more than doubling the space. Think globally, plant locally. (But, erhm, what’s happening to the Rock Garden? I love those erratic glacial boulders, hardy pieces of the mainland.) I was in the 100-year-old original section of NFG the…
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Springpink
Just about the perfect spring color.If you hurry, you can see the real thing at the magnolia madness at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
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Don’t Dump Your Turtle
One of the search phrases that’s led people to this blog more than once is about “releasing pet turtles in Prospect Park.” People want to know if it’s OK to do so. The answer is: no, it isn’t, and you shouldn’t ~ which is what I hope they learned from the internet. But, considering that…
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An Unusual Wildflower
One of the stranger wildflowers of the eastern forests is Conopholis americana, also known as squawroot, American cancer-root, and bearcorn. It looks like a fungus popping up out of the ground. But it’s a plant, and a good reminder that not all wildflowers are, well, wildflowery. This particular flower doesn’t photosynthesize; it lives by parasitizing…
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Spring screen
Baby, we were born to fold. For a miniature Japanese-style screen: 1. Open up image by clicking on it. 2. Print (in color preferably). Carp should be printed horizontally. 3. Trim as necessary. 4. Z-fold into thirds. 5. Position (in appropriate place). 6. Feel the serenity. Or other emotional state (as appropriate).
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Painted Turtle
The seasons turn. The years go ’round. Last March, I photographed a painted turtle, Chrysemys picta, at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Japanese Pond. It was surrounded by numerous eastern red-eared sliders. This past Saturday, I found the same — or, hopefully, another? — painted turtle in the same area of the Pond (where the rocks…
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First Bees of 2011
I’ve seen my first bees of the year. I was in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, where honey bees were working the crocuses: and the pollen-saturated Rose-Gold Pussy Willow:No other species of bees were seen, but the bumblebees should be out and about soon. There were a few flies, including this:A drone fly, Eristalis tenax. It…
Backyard and Beyond 