Rainy Wednesday.... who would have believed it. Seems like months since we've had any rain, probably because it's BEEN months since we've had any rain. More rain today tomorrow. We've got a few hundred plants to plant that will have to wait a few days now for the soil to dry out a bit, but that's okay- I'll take the rain.

The monthly tour of the Blomquist Garden, called the "Walk on the Wild Side", will focus on drought, and what happens to forest ecosystems in times of prolonged dry weather. In honor of my talk, it will most likely rain next Thursday. See you at 11 at the Blomquist gatehouse.

I'm working this morning on a new entry for the Blomquist Plant I.D. Blog "Name That Native". I'll be posting entries for that blog through October, then I'll take the late- fall and winter off, and start back up again when Spring arrives.

If you read my last post, you may remember me mentioning a 5K race I was going to run on campus last Friday. I bring it up again to comment on aging. I ran a lot when I was in high school and college, and thought I was pretty good. I recently starting running again (could have something to do with just having turned forty in July, not sure though). At any rate, with a quarter of a mile to go in that race last week I was in the lead, only to get passed by a nineteen year old at the very end. Payback is a #$^%#. Twenty years ago, I was that kid doing my level best to put any old geezer racing against me in my rear view mirror. I even remember what it felt like to put your foot down on the accelerator and find that extra gear when it counted most. I tried that on Friday myself, but something went wrong with my transmission, and that gear was nowhere to be found. I'm taking this hunk of junk into the shop.

Holy Taxonomy Batman! Time flies when you're not blogging.... Lots going on. Plant sale this weekend from 9-2 this Saturday here at the gardens. Lots of plants to choose from- both native and exotic. I'm running in the Pauly Dog's 5k run on Friday evening on East campus- I'm skipping the hot dog eating contest. Never seemed a good idea to run in ninety degree weather and then wolf down as much of something as you possibly can. I'm a vegetarian anyway, and I've never eaten a tofu dog that I'd want another of. At the sale we'll have a special collection of piedmont native perennials for sale in the Blomquist Collection area- come see us!

Some fun improvements happening in the Blomquist Garden- we're about halfway done with a garden renovation near the entry gatehouse. We've pulled out the exisiting plants and potted them, and we've improved the soil and irrigation. yesterday we began installing some of the "bones" in the form of boulders, shrubs, ferns and sedges. Soon we'll add some decaying logs, and then the flowering perennials will come last. Check it out!

Can't think of anything else to say right now, except "Will someone please throw a few three day weekends into the calendar, and pronto! I'm fried" Thanks in advance for your cooperation, whoever is in charge of the whole weekend type thing. See you!

a quick note- the latest blog post in my native plant i.d. blog is up- a good many goldenrods and others who are in bloom right now- check it out, you might learn the name of that plant you've been seeing on the roadside on the way to work. Enjoy!

I love three day weekends. Who was the @#$#^%$ who shortened them to two!?

A few notes.... we had a great "Walk on the Wild Side" last Thursday. Our topic was the early twentieth century Chicago area landscape architect Jens Jensen, and his impact on ecological landscape design. Lots of fun. As an ecology student interested in landscape design, Jens Jensen was one of my heroes, and he remains so today. I mentioned that I'd add a few links about him in a blog post- here ya go!

Jensen was a bigwig in the development of the parks and nature preserves in and around Chicago. Here's a link to an article detailing some of his legacy in that part of the country.

His book entitled Siftings is a treatise on the need for closer connection with our natural environment, among other topics. I read it twenty years ago, and still have fond memories of it.

Jensen was also enamored of working with his hands, and the peace and well-being that could be derived from a life of craftmanship. He took this love and translated it into a folk school in Door County, Wisconsin, an amazing spot to spend some time if you've never been. The Clearing is alive and well today, carrying on Jensen's love of all things handmade.

oh yes... the name of the author that I was struggling to remember during the walk who makes me think of Jens Jensen is Wendell Berry. My favorite book of his is one of his non-fiction essay collections entitled A Continuous Harmony.

one last thing... I've posted a photo gallery of the new handmade cedar railings in the Blomquist Wildlife Garden. Click here to check it out!

Morning!

I thought I might add a few photos to the blogosphere here. I am in love with the Wildlife Garden at the moment (for the tens of thousands of readers for whom this is their first Blomquist Garden blog post, we have a small themed garden within the Blomquist Garden of Native Plants which is called the Blomquist Wildlife Garden). At any rate, I spend at least fifteen to twenty minutes a day in the Wildlife Garden, usually pruning and weeding, but equally as often just looking. It's a wild space, and through the heart of it runs a small stream. I have been doing a good bit of very selective pruning lately to open small windows that a visitor can use to gaze up the stream course and see into another world. A healthy population of both green and cricket frogs have made the stream their home, and if you take a moment and sit on the northernmost bridge and look upstream, chances are you will see anywhere from one to five or six frogs in varying states of seeming repose. Some have only their bulbous eyes above water, peeking from within a blanket of detritus in the stream itself. Others are perched along it's banks at differing heights among the boulders. Yesterday Katherine called me to say she had seen a large Garter snake making his or her way upstream. I was there soon after, and the frogs had, predictably, gone into hiding, save for a brave soul peeking out from beneath a soggy Spicebush leaf in the water. For me, this is the essence of gardening; the creation of places where humans can revel in their ability to give succor to their own souls through the act of emulating nature, while at the same time creating a refuge where mother nature's wheel can continue to turn and we can be witness to it all.

I'm including a few photos of my froggish friends, their habitat, as well as some images of the new cedar fencing we've installed along the path in the garden. Don't forget the tour with Katherine this Thursday at 11:00. See you there!

Happy Tuesday...

I mentioned in my last post our cooperative garden project at the NC State Fairgrounds with the NC Native Plant Society. If you click on this link you can see a few photos of the garden soon after it's construction. We'll be putting the finishing touches today on phase one of the cedar fence addition to the Wildlife Garden. I have enjoyed this project a great deal, mostly because we've done the whole thing "in-house", as it were. We harvested the downed cedar from my family's property in Northern Durham county, we cut, sanded and finished all parts of the fence by hand on-site, and we installed the fencing ourselves. The fact that the existing rails on the bridges in the Wildlife Garden (expertly constructed by Justin Waller) were made of local red cedar, and the existence of a young red cedar tree in the garden itself, influenced my choice to add another architectural element using this material. One of my favorite landscape architects, Jens Jensen, was an early advocate of the use of native species in the landscape, as well as a pioneer in the use of indigenous building materials in highly designed landscapes. Around here, there is no more aesthetically pleasing and useful indigenous building material than red cedar, if you ask me.

I love it's color, shape, feel, smell, and durability. Click on Jensen's name to read an interesting article about him, his philosophy, and the early resistance to focusing on native plants as preferred plants in the designed landscape. It's an interesting read, and offers up some interesting discussion topics involving native plant landscaping as well.

Don't forget about Katherine's "Walk on the Wild Side" tour in the Blomquist Garden on September 2nd. We'll see you then!

A few interesting things to mention....

Katherine and I worked at the NC State fairgrounds yesterday. The Duke Gardens has a cooperative venture there with the North Carolina Native Plant Society, in the form of a small native plant demonstration garden. This is a permanent display set among the many seasonal gardens that get built for the fair each year. We're in the process of improving and expanding our small garden, so be sure to check it out if you come to the fair this year. We look forward to seeing you there.

Also, the fifth installment of the plant ID blog from the Blomquist Garden is available now. This week's focus is on the genus Eupatorium, with five of the ten plants this week being from that group.

Finally, we've been sweating (or should I say swimming) in this ridiculous humidity this week to move ahead with the improvements to the Wildlife Garden. A new low cedar fence will edge the path and emulate the rustic design of the bridge rails in the garden. We hope to have phase one of these improvements done by the end of next week, and have the garden open for business again. See you soon!

p.s. I'm working with Google to figure out why Korean internet chat pornography folks have decided to use my blog (as well as the blogs of others) to spam info about their websites in the comment section. I keep deleting them, but each time I post a new entry, four or five new bogus comments show up. In the meantime, how about you (my two readers) add some legitimate comments to the mix ? I'd love to hear from you!