Lamberton Conservatory, Highland Park (Arboretum), March 27, 2013

Howdy, again!  I know - don't say it!  But I have finally figured out a halfway decent means of copying images to the blog for the numbers of pictures that I usually take at any one time.

It's been a fairly typical Rochester winter after the extremely warm and dry winter of 2011-2012. That means that, on April 1, 2013 (that would be today) we had snow flurries this morning.  Oh the simple joys!

To counter that sad reality, I'm going to post some cheerier pictures that I took at the Lamberton Conservatory in Highland Park (Arboretum) last week.  I'm going to keep verbiage to a minimum (stop clapping your hands!  I can hear you from here!)

The bright spring flowers are from the seasonal room, which has things like pointsettias in the Christmas season, etc.  Here we go - keep your fingers crossed that everything works!

The Norfolk pine is a permanent resident, I believe (it'd be heck to try to move!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paperwhites...

A branch of the Norfolk Pine.  It's as soft as it looks!  VERY excellent!

 

 

 

 

We  are entering the subtropical room, and, although I'd melt on a regular day in here, whilst it's cold, the warmth feels lovely.  Sooo, here we are!

 

 

Hibiscus, the extra showy relative of the Rose of Sharon that many people have in their yards.  And calla lilies, I believe, although they are the wild relative of the ones we see frequently.

I like hibiscus - what can I say?  Giggles.

Bismark Palm.  This frond is about 3 feet top to bottom. 

 

These turtles live in the man-made stream with two waterfalls that runs through the tropical room.  These are all piled together to get heat from a lamp directly above them.  Talk about a traffic jam at rush hour!  They must have been climbing and pushing at 3 mph (speedy for a turtle)

 

A wider view of them taken a few minutes later. 

This is one of a multiplicity of button quail (this is an adult) living at the Conservatory.  I originally had read (far too quickly) that, although these are called quail, they are, in fact, related to the Grus (crane family).  DNA sequencing has finally confirmed that the button quail is related to shore birds, but that is it an extremely ancient order of that family, with similar fossils coming from the Ogilocene Epoch, 33.9 - 23 million years ago.

 

If you look around, you'll see bromeliads all over.  There are a great many different ones, such as this blushing number below.

 

 

The bromeliad below is in full bloom, which may last for several months, but may also not happen for several years at a time.

 

 

This is the croton Iceton  it's quite large and very colorful.  The leaves are splendid!

Another hibiscus...yup, I know.  But there were a lot of different hibiscus plants!  And, while photobucket is down AGAIN...I'm going to end this post with some outside pictures of the sky because it was lovely the day I took these pictures.  Now to see if Photobucket has returned.

But first - these azaleas were in the same room as the other colorful flowers.  The warmth of the conservatory rooms, of course, made them bloom a bit before their outside planted kindred.  But it's nice to see 'em!

Another bromeliad.  The center of the plant is where the blossom will form.  It's a slow process - but I'll check back tomorrow or Wednesday to see how far things have come.

The tree is a permanent resident, but the forsythia isn't.  Back in the first room again...I wander...

 

Some folks were calling this a redbud, and it certainly looks like it should be, although the others that I've seen have very upright postures.  It's lovely, none the less...

Sky!

More sky - I need to retouch to get the phone lines out...sorry!

Cropping will take care of the sign.  I should have done this earlier, but I wanted to get some pictures posted!

I hope you've enjoyed looking at the pictures!  I have, oh, possibly, three million more...Aren't you excited?

Have a great rest of the day!

 

 

 



Highland Park Arboretum, October 2012

Hi, everyone - this is going to be a combination of words and pictures because it's also my personal record of my wanderings through the Highland Park Arboretum, literally a gem unknown to most of the people I've talked to until I say the word "Lilac".  Then they nod and say "I've been to the Lilac Festival". 

I personally have avoided the Lilac Festival like the plague, which is one of the drawbacks of being an essentially very shy person.

And I didn't make it in 2012.  But I have been to the Arobretum over and over again since early spring and have learned to love it for exactly what it is - a place where trees of dozens of different types live and thrive. 

Autumn and spring tend to be the "exciting times" of the year, and in the Northeast?  Well, I think we all know that autumn is a time of blazing color and grand exits as trees shed their leaves in preparation for the Grand Silence, which is winter.

So Colorful leaves it is. 

And of course Photobucket is acting up.  Why am I not surprised.  Le sigh...

It's back, so I'm posting.

This is Japanese Maple Red Prince (Acer Palmatum Red Prince).  It's just one of the many types of Japanese Maples in the Park (Arboretum formally, but Park)

This is Japanese Maple Lion's Head.  The tree is a very slow growing Maple and has been specifically bred to appear in an array of colors like this in the autumn.  It's a lovely tree indeed!

There are a couple of these Japanese Maples in the Park.  The tree above is Acer palmatum 'Tobiosho' and is known for its striking autumn color.

And just in case everyone is slightly bored with the Acer palmatums, I'm tossing in the Japanese Stewartia, Stewartia pseudocamillia.  This tree's great beauty lies in its bark which exfoliates normally to show shades of pink, light tan and grey.  The branches are graceful and the entire tree is a beautiful thing, whatever time of year you happen to find it.

Here's a slightly better picture of the exfoliation of the Stewartia.  The color tones of the bark are those of the tree in real life.  Neat, right?

This is Stewartia in your face (I couldn't help it - and this branch was so insistant!  :)  )

This is the fruit of the Oriental Spindle Tree.  The fruit is quite dangerous and should never be eaten.  But it's lovely, nonetheless. 

And this is what the tree looks like.  Again, the bark is extremely interesting and the trees themselves are tandled and twisted like gnarled fingers.

I have better pictures of the tree that I'll put up in a different post. 





This fellow is Acer palmatum 'atropurpuereum' which was developed to show red leaves in the spring shading to light green in the summer and on to deep red in the autumn.  Like the other Japanese maples, its branches are as much part of the beauty as its display of leaves throughout the growing season. 

Another shot of the tree from a different angle.

This was half the fun with taking these pictures!  The light changed and the color changed with it!  My camera, I have discovered, tends to slightly overexpose things, but at least you have the idea.  It's VERY red!

This next tree is not noted for its foliage, but it's bark is a lulu.  This is the "raisin tree" .  It is native to the southeast coast of China.  The bark is marvellous...and the autumn fruits do look like little bunches of something between a grape and a raisin...Pretty neat!!!! 

 This picture of the tree was actually taken in the spring.  I was so impressed by the bark, which isn't dying or anything, that I wanted pictures of it to show folks.  Isn't it incredible?

And here's a shot of its fruit in the autumn.  There are some references to the fruit being edible, but not until it's been cooked.  Personally, I would be cautious until I'd spoken with someone with a great deal more knowledge than I have before I ever tried this fruit. 

But it IS a nifty tree!

Another shot of theTobioshio...the picture doesn't do justice to the color, although it's closer than some others I took.

 

I don't want to wear out my welcome, so I'm going to head out for now.  More posts in a day or two, now that I'm more conversant in getting pictures over to this blog!

Have a great day!

Until next time!

Leaves and Trees and Clouds

Hi, everyone.  I'm not going to do a lot of talking in this post.  I'm just putting some pictures out for you to see.  And I'll tell you where I took the shots...aren't you relieved?  (Stop the Huzzah-ing! Geesh!)

Autumn Trees so Far All of this first batch were taken at the off-ramp to Long Pond Road from the Ontario State Parkway heading west.  The day was variable - cloudy and then blazingly sunny, with a lot of sun reflecting off the whiter clouds.  It was also freezing cold and windy, but pretty trees are worth it! The clouds are at the end!

For the picture above - the only way I could get the leaf color to look all right was to lower some of the blazing sunny white of the cloud.  Otherwise, the leaves would have looked black.  Ugh!

 

 

And Photobucket is acting up AGAIN.  BAH!  So I'm going to close this post and go to work...More clouds and such things asap!