Severe Weather Ceremony Cancelled Due to Severe Weather

Our headline is a real headline from the weather network today.  It appears that in Topeka, Kansas a "severe weather ceremony" was canceled due to freezing rain and ice.  The proclamation to be signed was about the importance of severe weather preparedness. The Weather Network was having some fun. What about the headlines at the side. Here's the link: Need snow removed in Russia?  Put Kremlin critic's name in it (This is about spray-painting the opposition leader's name on the snow, and it gets removed promptly) Read grasshopper found embedded in Van Gogh painting (From October 2017: “It is not unusual to find insects or plant material in a painting that was completed outdoors,” said paintings conservator Mary Schafer in a statement. “But in this case, we were curious if the grasshopper could be used to identify the particular season in which this work was painted.”) Your forecast:  Sunny, chance of 100-km-swath of butterflies (From October 2017:  "After putting out the call for help from birdwatchers on Twitter, the curious forecasters were able to determine the cause of the signal - a swath of Painted Lady butterflies some 110 km wide, spanning the entire width of Arapahoe County, east of Denver".) More from our Niagara Butterfly Conservatory.

Travel Adventure

Longwood's outside gardens are often surpassed by the inside conservatory displays.  One travels the world with its inside conservatory gardens.   It gives the experience of travelling the world on a plant expedition adventure. Last evening I heard the story of Mark Quattrocchi from Mark himself as he finishes his two-year grand adventure - "One Adventure Please".  He has travelled around a good part of the world on a bicycle, raising funds for Free the Children.  He is fulfilling a life goal and dream.  See Mark's last post here and his route here.  I took away his sense of optimism and wonder.  He has seen some of the most beautiful sights on the planet, and his greatest appreciation is for meeting so many caring and kind people on his trip. His travel adventure seems to have been to meet the world as well as see the world. Most of us don't live like Mark has for the last 2 years.  He engaged in every moment, good and bad, up and down. It sounded like there were lots of moments of both wonder and hunger.  Just imagine how many languages were spoken to him.   If you would like to help Mark complete his campaign to build schools in the Adopt-A-Village program here's the link.  He's very close and would appreciate your support.

In the Land of Cotton

I went to the East Georgia Botanical Garden in Savannah, Georgia on the trip down to Florida.  I was startled by a crop in the vegetable garden.  Clearly it was cotton.  I'd never seen a cotton plant.  My picture has captured cotton that has been left on the plant over the winter, so we don't see the fluffy cellulose at its best.  It remains a major crop world-wide. Our next picture is one that we associate with Florida.  It is a cypress tree reflecting in the water - a wonderful natural landscape within the botanical garden.   Finally, no garden is complete without a reference to the human element of structures and buildings. The warm colour of the wall gives us a sense of the backdrop we can expect in tropical gardens.

On the Surface of Things

Whenever I go to conservatories and to Florida, I seem to take many pictures of the surface of palm branches, trunks, and other tropical plants.  They are unfamiliar and interesting.  They have so many patterns and designs.  Their textures are often in a horizontal pattern, compared to our northern trees which have more in the way of vertical patterns. Today we look at Palm patterns, with a Eucalyptus at the bottom.

Tropical Means Colour!

Florida Colours

Florida Colours      We have left behind the brilliant colours of Florida. Our house for the the time we were there was Sweet Mango Manor, an historic house that is now a painted lady - blue with purple trim.  Colour was in abundance both inside and out. The patio stones were bright turquoise with yellow chairs and printed pink and turquoise cushions. The patio had a little coffee table with patterned glass.  I used it one morning to create some abstract prints using cushions and found objects. When I look out at our northern landscape with its reduced colour palette, I realize that these tropical colours are part of what makes a vacation further south so attractive.  For the gardener, the subtropical garden of Sweet Mango Manor was lovely.  There were mass plantings of bromeliads as ground covers, orchids in hanging baskets, narrow palm trees creating height in the landscape, and butterflies on the powder puff bushes.

Cannas - Beautiful Lines

Canna leaves are elegant and colourful, with flowing lines as they unfold.  They have been popular with artists for a long time.  Georgia O'Keeffe 's image of Canna Leaves is on display in the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe.  

With hybridization, the leaves have taken on rainbow hues.  Together with the orchid-like flowers, it remains a popular pot plant and garden display plant. 

Niagara Butterflies

The Niagara Butterfly Conservatory is a beautiful place to visit in the winter.  We stopped in just after the New Year and enjoyed the children, butterflies, flowers and warm weather of the lush tropical landscape.  Niagara Falls in a very wintery, snowy place, and the day we were there was an excellent demonstration of that.  

However, once inside, the drive through the snow is worth it, and the magic of butterflies comes through.