NPG May 20, 2016

NPG May 20, 2016
Marcia Strean

No signage yet when I got there before 10:00 AM. It was lovely to have relaxed time to list all the blooming plants.

Sunny, pleasant at 10:00, going to 77 degrees, Short-sleeved tour guide shirt appropriate by the 11:00 tour. First time that I can ever remember doing a NPG tour on a Friday. Whether it was the perfect weather, a new show (Impressionists) at the Garden, or the day of the week, but there were 12 on the tour, and, also unusual for me, a second tour at 12:30, with more than 17 on the tour.  Shoulda brought my loudspeaker...

Marcia Strean leading a tour

We did get a follow-up report from James that at this time there is no plan to provide Garden leadership for the school groups coming through, but I found it painful that, literally, hundreds of school kids came walking through with teachers and aides or parents and never heard a word about what they were seeing. Whenever I could, I asked the teacher if I could tell them something, and the teachers were extremely grateful, each time saying they knew nothing. I have an idea: Instead of a docent leading a whole class through the whole NPG, several of us stationed around could explain at their level.

school groups in the Native Plant Garden 

school group in the Native Plant Garden

Plants are listed as you approach the NPG:

Wild Geranium

Golden alexanders

Wild bleeding heart

Gardener John said what I called Fairywand is Camassia.  Live and learn.

Baptisia alba

Baptisia australis

Already there is the dark green fullness of summer.

Columbine

Phlox

Turn right onto the Gravel-Lok:

Bluestar

Shooting star

Fleabane

Plume Solomon's seal

Foamflower

Yellow trillium

Yellow lady slipper

Jacob’s ladder

Sedum

Bluets

Mayapple apple

White trillium/Bent trillium T. Flexipes

Kalmia latifolia

Tiny bud on inkberry

Ferns to note xmas, mickel, maidenhair, marginal wood fern, ostrich, royal

Osmunda regalis American royal fern

Go up steps:

Azalea

Curlyhead behind the bench

Rhododendron

One lavender four petalled flower by water pipe?

Grass and Sedges flowering

Wild ginger. Soon gone, show while it is there!

Celandine poppy

Shrub with bell-like white flowers    photo

White wild geranium

Dirt path continue past fallen tree

Visitor pointed out the Green'nGold Chrisogonum along the dirt path

Turn back on the Gravel-Lok:

Common Reed Juncus effusus

Pitcher plants

Iris

Back on boardwalk:

Osmundastrum cinnamomeum Cinnamon fern

Cinnamon fern

Robin’s fleabane

Rue anemone

Starry Solomon's Seal

Gardener John watering says not fairywand but a bulb camassia

Camassia scilloides Atlantic camas, wild hyacinth

Back to entrance boardwalk

Orontium in third water section

Graves Beach plum

Up Gravel-Lok toward split rock

Another bee in my bonnet: Agitate for paths in meadow

Cornus sericea Red Osier Dogwood

Spiderwort

Wild Quinine

Prairie smoke

Beardtongue dwarf hairy "pygmaeus" 

Penstemon hirsutus Beardtongue dwarf hairy "pygmaeus" 

Big buds on coreopsis lanceolata

Little yellow flowers are clover

Fringe tree

Fringe tree Chionanthus virginicus

Narrowleaved blue-eyed grass

Narrowleaved blue-eyed grass Sisyrinchium angustifolium

Green hawthorn tree

Iris cristata

Chickweed, hairy

Larkspur

Umbrella Plant

Diphylleia cymosa Umbrella leaf

Yellow Mandarin Prosartes and Bellwort neighbors showing their somewhat similar yellow flowers

Viola walteri

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