Another Day in the Park

     This morning I joined the Tidewater Master Naturalist at First Landing State Park for monthly trail maintenance. We trimmed overhanging branches and trip-hazard vines, plus we also installed signs designating our adopted trails. Other than cleaning up after the clueless and careless, it was a fairly easy day, and I always enjoy a visit to this unique ecosystem.

     During the middle of our duties we paused and headed to the beach to witness something special. A rehabilitated loggerhead turtle was released back into the sea. This particular loggerhead goes by the name of St. Louis, and he was found further west in Ocean View, underweight and with two fishhooks stuck in his flesh. Though the crowd was considerable, it did not seem to deter St. Louis from making his reentry a quick one.

     While we are still on the subject of sea turtles, I want to encourage all of you to tell your friends and family never to release balloons into the air. Even if you live hundreds of miles inland, in one of the landlocked states, balloons can still find their way to the sea. Deflated and floating on the surface of the water, they can look a lot like something a turtle might want to eat, only to have it get stuck in the turtle's digestive tract. That concludes this station's public service announcement.

Busman's Holiday - Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden

     Earlier this month I was able to take a bus trip to Richmond with many people I work with at the Norfolk Botanical Garden. There were also several members from the board of directors along, and our mission was to visit Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden and Maymont Park. Our group had representatives from each department, not just gardeners, and our goal was to get ideas, to see how the two other entities were run, and to meet our counterparts. We were treated most graciously and had a great and full day.

     This was my third trip to Lewis Ginter, but my first time looking at it through the eyes of a public garden employee. A guest's first experience with Ginter happens at the impressive Robins Visitor's Center (named for the pharmaceutical family that brought you flea collars, Chap Stick and the Dalkon Shield). Once through the building there is a series of courtyards and gardens flanked by the education and library complex and that lead to the conservatory, yet more impressive structures.

     As one would expect, the conservatory contains many tropical plants and a large orchid collection, but it also has a seasonal display wing, and on our visit there was a tropical butterfly exhibit.

     View from the Rose Garden

     Flager Pavillion and Perennial Garden

    Red Abyssinian Banana (Ensete maurelii) and 'Rustic Orange' Coleus (Solenostemon scutellarioides) in the Children's Garden

     Giant Dutchman's Pipe (Aristolochia gigantea)

     From my previous visits to Ginter, I knew to look forward to their collection of Sarracenia (pitcher plants). The first picture is S. alata and some type of wasp, who I thought was busy looking to make an easy meal from some struggling, less careful insect, or maybe it was also drawn in by whatever attracted the other creatures .

     S. leucophylla

     S. flava

     S. purpurea

     The Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden is possible because of a long ago gift from Grace Arents, a Richmond philanthropist. Her home, Bloemendaal House, still stands and is surrounded by a lovely garden. The building was originally a bicycle club built in the late 1800's by her uncle Lewis Ginter. Miss Arents admired her uncle greatly and stipulated that the botanical garden should bear his name.

     After being humbled by the state of Lewis Ginter's buildings compared to where I work, I expected to leave feeling inadequate, but I didn't. Their gardens are beautiful, but no more so than the ones I work in, and of the two I rather be envious of their bricks, mortar, steel and glass than their gardens.

(Though most of the pictures in my Lewis Ginter set are in this post, you can see the complete collection here.)