Today's
report was written by Hugh Nourse. You can see all the
photos Don Hunter took of today's Ramble here.
Today twelve Ramblers
met by the arbor. As we were gathering
it started to rain but the brief shower ended by 8AM when Bob Ambrose recited
his poem “After The Next Rain.” You can
access his poem here http://bobambrosejr-private.blogspot.com/2015/05/after-next-rain.html. If you do not have access yet to this site,
e-mail Bob at bobambrosejr@gmail.com
and he will add you to the list of people who can access it.
We
were free of rain the rest of the morning, in fact there was hardly a cloud in
the blue sky when we finished.
Our
route for today was the hummingbird trail in the formal garden areas because
the storms on Tuesday had caused severe damage to trails with many downed
trees. The idea was to see nature in the
formal Garden area. Some do not think of
a formal garden as being part of nature,
but it is. We left the arbor and headed
down towards the Flower Bridge, passing by the American South garden. Before
reaching the Flower Bridge we took the left path through the Spanish America
Garden, the Mediterranean and Middle East Garden to the Physic Garden. From there to the Heritage Garden. Spent some time in the Heritage Garden and
the Berckman Orchard down the slope below the Heritage Garden. Walked through the Flower Garden stopping at
hummingbird markers. Went behind the
stage, climbed up the stairway to the Rose Terraces, detoured along the Ellipse
to the Day Chapel. Walked back through the Heritage Garden, stopping briefly at
the Herb Garden before finishing at the Conservatory.
In the American South we observed
wild bergamot, crimson bee balm, and Virginia spiderwort. As we turned left
before the Flower Bridge we spied bottlebrush buckeye in full bloom. Its
flowers (inflorescence) are in a panicle.
We talked about the difference between a raceme, spike, and
panicle. A spike is a elongate
unbranched indeterminate inflorescence with sessile flowers. A raceme is an elongate, unbranched
indeterminate inflorescence with pedicellate flowers. A panicle is an indeterminate branching
raceme; the branches of the primary axis are raceme like and the flowers are on
pedicels. Over the last two weeks we
have noticed that there are few perfect (both male and female parts) flowers in
each panicle. There may not even be
any. This would lead to very few
buckeyes (fruit of this plant). To see
this we back tracked over the Flower Bridge to the bottlebrush buckeye that we
have been looking at for several weeks.
It was now in fruit and we could see how few there were on each
panicle. Some had none, a few had one to
three, and only a few had four or more buckeyes developing.
Returning across the Flower Bridge
we stopped to view the hummingbird nest seen over the last several weeks. The babies had fledged, and it was empty, but
we could still see the very interesting, small, lichen covered nest with the
naked eye.
The first plant noted in the Spanish
American Garden was a Peruvian lily, Alstroemeria sp. I could not remember the
name at the time, but did remember that our oldest daughter’s father-in-law, a
horticulture professor at the University of Minnesota, had chosen this flower
for the bouquets for her wedding with his son.
He had developed cultivars of this lily for the nursery trade. Next was one of the many spiderwort
cultivars. We also passed by the Arizona
cedar. We were drawn over to the Great
Lawn to see a silvery checkerspot butterfly that Ronnie had found.
In the Mediterranean and Mideast
Garden we noted the chaste tree with five palmate leaflets and a blue purple
raceme of flowers. It attracts many
bees, but it was still too early for them to be active.
Walking through the hop-covered
arbor into the Physic Garden we paid special attention to the Native American
Meadow with wild quinine, rattlesnake master, culver’s root, and an
unidentified mint. From here we could see damage done by storm. A really tall tree by the big granite outcrop
beside the Physic Garden had probably been struck by lightening and was broken
off about twenty feet high. Wilf Nichols
told us earlier that there had been a wasp nest in that tree and one of the
workers clearing the damage was stung. Before leaving the Physic Garden we
noted the dwarf yaupon hollies outlining the sections of the knot garden, with
marigolds in the middle.
Taking the path through an arbor to
the Heritage Garden we found blackberry lilies.
Some were in flower, others just closing up. This native of China has become naturalized
here in the U.S; there are several out at Rock and Shoals Outcrop Natural
Area. It is called blackberry lily
because the fruit looks like a blackberry. As we approached the bridge into the
Heritage Garden, we were looking for hummingbirds, but still saw none. The American beautyberry was in bloom, and we
talked about the striking purple berries that will come later. Beside it was a
red buckeye tree, with buckeyes.
In the Heritage Garden we talked
about how it is arranged with Heirloom perennials on the left and heirloom
roses on the right. Straight ahead was
the Bittern Fountain in the middle of a parterre. There was some discussion of
what ‘parterre’ means. (“An ornamental garden area in which the flower beds and
path form a pattern”, Webster’s New World College Dictionary). Tadpoles with
legs were swimming In the fountain. We
wondered if they could get out of the pool which seemed to have steep
sides. One answer was that there was a
disc from which they could get out, and we did see some toads (frogs?) on the
ground around the pool. On the other
side of the parterre were two more sections of the Garden. On the left was the Fruitland Nursery Plants
which included the Hardy Orange. This plant is not native, but I have seen it
in the natural areas at the new Tallassee Tract. The fruit is bitter and not edible. Here was the first spot we found pollinators
this morning: a bumble bee. The scientific name of hardy orange has
recently been changed from Poncirus trifoliata to Citrus trifoliata. Botany of the Day had this to say about the
plant:
Whether
you think trifoliate orange is a Citrus or not, this species is
undeniably important to the lemons and oranges that we love to eat. Citrus trifoliata (pdf) makes an excellent
rootstock
for other Citrus species. It is very cold hardy (withstanding
temperatures well below freezing), so other Citrus species grafted onto
the rootstock can produce trees with tasty fruit that survive in cold climates.
Arguably, the most significant advantage of a Citrus trifoliata
rootstock is that it confers resistance to the citrus tristeza virus, the most
economically-damaging Citrus disease. Trifoliate orange also hybridizes
freely with other citrus, and has been used to make numerous crosses including:
citremons (with lemons), citranges (with sweet oranges) , and citrumquats (with
kumquats).
Also on the right side of the Garden here is a bed of
heirloom annuals. Through the arch into the Trustees Terrace are row crops with pecan trees on one
side. This represents the first
agricultural experimental station in Georgia, the trial garden for the early
Savannah settlers.
Next we
went down the path with trees sold at the historic Berckman’s Orchard on the
left. Here we looked at the solitary bee
condos. These are made up of many tubes
enclosed in a box or cylinder. A bee
lays an egg in one of the tubes, adds nectar for food and walls it in. She then adds more eggs, one after the other
and finally seals the tube with mud.
When the eggs have developed into bees and are ready to emerge they come
out in reverse order. The males are laid
closer to the end and come out first so there will be plenty of males when the
females emerge.
By now
it was getting warmer and the bees were at work. Following the hummingbird
trail in reverse at this point, we passed into the Flower Garden below the
Orchard. Here was a slope of crepe
myrtles, some yarrow, and a blue sage.
The carpenter bees were busy robbing the nectar from the blue sage without
pollinating it by biting a hole in the end of the flower and not going through
the tube of the flower where the anthers are.
The next stop was the wildflower meadow, which included yarrow,
partridge pea, Mexican hat, Carolina desert chicory, wild bergamot, spotted
beebalm, purple coneflower, blanket flower, black-eyed Susan, and brown-eyed
Susan.
The all
American Selections Display Garden was blooming profusely, and the bees were
all over it. There seemed to be honey
bees and smaller ones. Down the walk we
came to the second of the three wildflower meadows. This second one has been changed to an aster
garden, but was not really blooming yet.
The third one has been made into a grass meadow containing mostly
cultivars of native grasses, such as panicums.
Walking
behind the stage in the Flower Garden we saw many species of hibiscus. There were also cannas beside the stage. From here we started up the steps through the
terraces. First we stopped at the
Fragrance Garden which included a lot of thyme.
The pollinators we saw busily working the thyme were both honey bees and
bumble bees. Here we also saw a female
eastern tiger swallowtail butterfly and a silvery checkerspot butterfly. We also began to see hummingbirds above
us. At our feet in the grass was
Virginia buttonweed.
Going
up the grand staircase from the Sunflower Gate made by Andrew Crawford we
passed lantanas, and white muhly grass that will look fantastic in the
fall. In the Rose Garden we noted that a
lot of cleome had been planted. One
reason we are seeing so much of it in the Garden this year is that it has a
smell that drives away deer. It seems to be working. Other flowers have also been planted among
the roses, including marigolds. In the
wood chip mulch we found some interesting mushrooms with black or gray tops and
white stems. Ronnie picked up an oak
apple (gall) here. We also saw several
hummingbirds at this point.
Reaching
the ellipse we walked toward the Chapel where Ronnie and his mother found more
tadpoles in the fountain. In fact there
was one sitting on a water lily leaf; he still had a tail. Sue Wilde found a label on a woody shrub with
velvety leaves that we could not identify earlier near the stage. The name was Hibiscus grandiflora. She also noted with surprise several long
leaf pines in their grass stage.
On our
way back to the Conservatory we stopped again by the Heritage Garden to look
the many lichens on an old wooden bench.
Behind the bench small flowered anise was blooming. Also by the Heritage
Garden is a wonderful live oak tree. A
fairly young tree, it just doesn’t have the majesty of the grand old live oaks
on the coastal plain or barrier islands.
Those trees were very important in shipbuilding, providing dense strong
wood for the main keels of the early colonial ships.
Lastly,
we stopped in the Herb Garden to see if the pollinators were active there
yet. They were. I think we mostly saw bumblebees and honey
bees, especially around the cock’s comb.
From
here it was only a step into the Conservatory for conversation and snacks at
Donderos.
Hugh Nourse
