third dozen

… continued from previous post

Virginia spiderwort

Presenting to you even more flowers enjoying the sunshine. They were being visited by lots of bees, butterflies, and dragonflies. And other pollinators we didn’t notice, no doubt. We did have a south wind, a breeze actually, which made some of the flowers almost as difficult to photograph as the ever-in-motion birds.

‘Tennessee White’ dwarf crested iris
yellow trillium
foamflower
‘white lady banks’ rose

South winds jostle them —
Bumblebees come —
Hover — hesitate —
Drink, and are gone —

Butterflies pause
On their passage Cashmere —
I — softly plucking,
Present them here!

~ Emily Dickinson
(The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #98)

‘white lady banks’ rose
Japanese jack-in-the-pulpit
fern-leaf scorpion-weed
bluets
atamasco lily aka rain lily
highbush blueberry

Unlike Emily, I didn’t pluck any of the flowers, but have presented them to you by way of photographs instead. There is always something new (to me) growing at the botanical garden, and it’s also fun seeing the familiar plants and noticing how they keep changing with the circle of the seasons.

~ finis ~

hunting for cinnamon fern

4.2.24 ~ ‘old blush’ rose arbor
North Carolina Botanical Garden

It was spring vacation week so we had a chance to take Katherine with us on one of our walks at the botanical garden. Like her grandmother, she was enchanted by the rose arbor. And we finally saw tadpoles in the frog pond!

And of course we saw lots of flowers…

lobed tickseed
Florida flame azalea
Virginia spiderwort
bogbean
wild geranium (with tiny ant)
great white trillium

Katherine knows a lot about cinnamon ferns and she located some starting to come up in the Mountain Habitat (above). And then, in the Coastal Plain Habitat (below) she spotted some more that were taller and starting to unfurl. My granddaughter informed me that, among other things, cinnamon fern is the oldest species of fern on earth. (70 million years!)

learning about cinnamon ferns from Katherine
(photo by Tim)

Of course there were some birds to enjoy and a couple even paused for a photo or two…

Mr. & Mrs. Cardinal
he was feeding her but I couldn’t capture it!
northern cardinal
white-throated sparrow

What a blessing it was to share a beautiful day with our granddaughter, to share our interests with her and to have her share hers with us.