Weekend News

The Saturday edition of our local paper had a couple of articles that I thought would be of interest to you. Did you know that this is National Pollinator Week? Concern over the decreasing honeybee population has led scientists to create more awareness in the public about the important role bees play in maintaining the world's diversity of flowering plants. In the U.S. the number of honey bee colonies has declined by half since 1947. According to the head of the University of Illinois' entomology department, "Without pollination, for these species there will be no fruits, no seeds and no future. All the organisms that depend on those particular plants are thus jeopardized." The U of I entomology department is taking an active role in promoting the week by sponsoring several activities, including getting the public involved in monitoring wild bee populations through a web site called BeeSpotter. A related article stated that "ordinary people" can help conserve bees by "limiting our use of pesticides and favoring native plants in our landscaping."

I know I am preaching to the choir with this last statement, but I think it is great that more and more people are being reminded of the importance of protecting our bee population. As for me, I was never much of a bee lover and remember all too well what a bee sting feels like. But in the last few years I've come to understand their important role in nature, and I can now say that the bumblebees and I happily co-exist in my flower garden.



The other interesting article was in a weekly column written by a horticulturist with the County Extension Office which this week featured a suggested garden destination: The Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This immediately caught my eye, because we visited these gardens a few years ago while on a short vacation in southwest Michigan. There are indoor garden areas as well as outdoor themed gardens and nature trails. The Meijers, founders of the grocery stores of the same name, also were very interested in art, particularly sculpture, and have an excellent sculpture park as well as three art galleries on the grounds. I don't know very much about modern art, but even I recognized the name Rodin among the artists. My favorite piece, though, was the huge bronze horse sculpted by an American artist and modeled after the famous bronze horse attempted (but then destroyed) by Leonardo Da Vinci. It is one of two such horses, the other being in Milan, Italy. This summer they also have two special exhibits honoring Monet and Degas. My husband and daughter were trying to humor me when they agreed to drive over to Grand Rapids for the afternoon to see the park, but I think they wound up enjoying it as much as I did. If you live in Michigan or are driving through, I highly recommend a stop at the Meijer Gardens--it's worth the trip!

So how did I spend the weekend besides reading the paper? On Saturday Beckie and I went on a Garden Walk sponsored by the local Master Gardeners. (I'm thinking of changing the name of my blog to "The Gardening Adventures of Beckie and Rose," what do you think?) This is the first time we have attended this yearly event, and we had been looking forward to it for several weeks. Since neither of us are early-morning people, we decided on a late morning start, which was a good thing since a brief thunderstorm hit the whole area about the time the garden walk began. By the time we started out, though, the sun had come out, and we had a great day admiring other people's gardens.

Beckie has already posted about the walk, so I'll keep my description brief. Besides, I apparently was oohing and aahing over all the gardens that I forgot to take many pictures!

We visited 6 of the 8 gardens on the walk, all of them at private residences which varied from modest homes to larger homes in new subdivisions (read: no trees) to one home in an established, very affluent neighborhood in town. I was captivated by the front lawn and garden of this house across from the Country Club, and it wasn't even on the walk!

All of the homes featured large expanses of plantings from the front yard to the back. One home was on a lake, and the homeowners had plantings right up to the lake as you can see below. It was beautiful, but I kept imagining myself falling into the water trying to plant irises on the hillside.

Beckie was in dragonfly heaven here as there was a flock (a throng? a herd?) of dragonflies hovering about the waterlilies. We even saw two flying together in what appeared to be the mating act. Both of us kept snapping away with our cameras; she definitely got the better picture. The sun was much too bright to get a good shot, but I wanted to show you this one anyway. I didn't know until I looked at the photos later that there were two in the picture!

Besides just enjoying the beauty of a well-planned garden, one of the advantages of this type of walk is seeing how people combine different plants and their placement of garden art or accessories. I saw this sedum at one home surrounded by a collection of medium-sized rocks. I don't know the name of this particular sedum, but I've seen it in local nurseries. Seeing it in this setting gave me the idea of the perfect spot for it in my garden.

I do not have an eye for decorating, so I especially enjoy getting ideas from the ways people use different objects as garden art. This decorated pink flamingo apparently won a first prize in some kind of contest.

Funny and original, yes. But I'm not a big fan of pink flamingos. I don't think I'll be rushing out to buy one to decorate any time soon.

My favorite garden on the walk was actually the first one we visited. The front of their modest-sized, tidy brick home was surrounded by these Annabelle hydrangeas and large hostas. The Annabelles seemed pretty popular as we saw them in several of the gardens.

Passing from the front yard into the back, every other square inch of property had been transformed into a garden. In the middle of the back yard/garden was a pond complete with koi fish and a small waterfall. If I had a pond (and how I wish I did!), I would love to see this little guy floating in the middle of all the lilypads.

It was a lovely day, and you might think I went home with a serious case of garden envy to go with my camera envy. Yes, I did see some beautiful gardens and wished I could add more to my own garden, but at the same time I kept thinking, "These are huge! Unless I could afford someone to dig up and prepare all these beds, I couldn't keep up with all of this." Instead I went home and looked at my gardens with a critical eye, thinking about what could be added or moved, but I have no plans to dig up my whole front yard! I'll let someone else worry about trying to create an award-winning garden.

Our weekend ended on a sweet note--literally. Our youngest grandchild celebrated his first birthday with a party on Sunday. The chocolate cake was delicious, but no one enjoyed it as much as he did!

Happy Birthday, my dear little one!