… agree that the highlight this time of year is warblers. It is for me—they are tiny jewels with wings. I feel totally blessed if I can see a few during migration. Since these birds are so small, they usually wait for favorable winds to help them travel. Any night with southerly winds will have the birds moving; new birds arrive while others depart. Every year … the way to fuel their journey. Most of them are insect eaters, and some supplement their diet with seeds and nectar from flowers. While the cold spring delayed the plants a bit, the insects …
Type: Blog
… Zones: 3 to 8 Size: 18 inches tall and 2 feet wide Conditions: Full sun; moist to wet soil With Short and Sassy sneezeweed ( Helenium autumnale ‘Short and Sassy’), the cultivar name says it all: the plant is 2 feet tall with an assertive orange-yellow color. In the past, all sneezeweeds grew 5 feet tall and would … soil The reddish-purple color found in ironweed flowers is one of kind. The problem with these natives is that most of them get gigantic, usually around 8 feet tall. Fortunately, …
Type: Blog
… and delivers the finished plants to horticulturists throughout the year. Adamiec has been with the Garden since 2011, when she was hired as the grower for outdoor floriculture. She has a …
Type: Staff bio
… vines typically begin to flower at five years or older. Flowers are produced in clusters, with one flower opening each day in the morning. Stop by the Tropical Greenhouse soon to see …
Type: Blog
… the monarch butterfly is on nearly everyone’s radar, due to its precarious situation with dwindling wintering grounds and lack of larval food plants—the milkweeds. However, if you … differences most easily seen in their antennae. While butterflies have narrow antennae with club-shaped structures at the end, the moths can have either thread-like antennae that end … shape and pattern, they also have a wonderful variety of common names that people have come up with to label them. There are sphinx moths or hawkmoths, daggers and darts, army worms and …
Type: Blog
… for the Graham Bulb Garden, Aquatic Garden, and Viburnum Walk. She has been fascinated with the natural world since childhood, when she spent much of her time outdoors. …
Type: Staff bio
… procedures was ignited in his eighth-grade chemistry class, where he enjoyed doing experiments with different types of elements. These days, though, he is mostly interested in engineering. … us care for our own environment.” Alexis imagines combining a career in mechanical engineering with his interest in the natural sciences when, hopefully, robotics can someday be used to help …
Type: Blog
… plant has large, thick, green leaves, is about 10–12 inches long and 8–10 inches wide, with deeply serrated edges, and is completely covered in tiny, purple hairs (which are not really … Notice that they all have five petals that are fused so that they look like a funnel with five lobes. You’ll easily be able to pick out the one plant that does not belong in the …
Type: Blog
… Botanic Garden’s Negaunee Institute for Plant Conservation Science and Action, together with lead author Monica Carvalho and Carlos Jaramillo —researchers at the Smithsonian Tropical … origin of modern neotropical rainforests. Science. The authors of this paper are affiliated with STRI in Panama, the Universidad del Rosario Bogota, Colombia; The Université de Montpellier, …
Type: Research
… to create artistic sculptures and let creativity be the guide. Build a stone tower topped with a flower, or let a design naturally reveal itself. Discover the beauty of natural materials … on what can be created using material found in the backyard and a bit of imagination. Paint with mud. Why use regular paint when mud is so much more fun? Swap out watercolors for mud, and …
Type: Blog
