Sara P Duke Gardens in late June

Visited Duke Gardens today, looked really nice as always. This post will share some of the scenes and plantings in the gardens. Always look forward to visiting the gardens, looks like there is a lot more ginger lilies planted than ever before hope to catch them in bloom in late summer.

 Coneflowers were in peak bloom, a real delight. Same no big butterflies visiting them though.

 Hostas and ferns, nice!

 Lots of elephant ears mixing the colored foliage. 

 Water Lilies!!

 Two angles of my favorite bench in the gardens, nice hideaway.

The white garden above and below, only white flowers in this garden! 

 Gray Hairstreak on Black-eyed Susan.

 Old fashioned flowers in the Burpee Garden.

 Juniper Hairstreak!

Butterflies & Waterlilies at Duke Gardens

This past Wednesday I helped Meg's second grade class with a field trip to Sara P Duke Gardens. As you know they are raising butterflies, Black Swallowtails. So far as of yesterday 5 have emerged and have been released. Many classrooms raise and release butterflies, usually I do not recommend releasing butterflies raised from kits shipped from across the country. Releasing butterflies from local wild sources is a very good thing to do.

Female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail on penta.

We found maybe 30 species of butterflies at Duke Gardens, the best ones were Painted Ladies, Long-tailed Skippers and a Delaware Skipper. About half the class witnessed a female Monarch laying eggs on Swamp Milkweed.

I had fun getting photos of the water gardens, every year the tropical water lilies get better. Still early in the water lily season I hope to go back and investigate further.

The lower terraces water garden looking from the right side.

The lower terraces water garden looking from the left side.

Burgundy water lilies so cool, hard to capture the color correctly on these beauties!

Lotus flower, this might have been a dwarf lotus, very small.

This is Autumn Clematis, it is having a great year here. Last spring I found a plant in the garden that the birds planted. I moved it to a better spot and it is already blooming. I saw honey bees gathering white nectar from it. We have a large mass of this going along the roadside about 1 1/2 miles from the house.

Happy Valentines Day!

Valentines Day is supposed to be a day when you share a little extra love with your loved ones.  Wanted to pass on that love to everyone that visits my blog!

These days we seem to live in a world of the politics of fear... We need to get beyond starting wars with the rest of the world and work towards world peace. I was at Duke Gardens a few weeks ago and found this ancient garden bench that stuck in my mind ever since. I just had to share it with you. Now I know a little about this bench.

 This bench is across the the visitor center before you enter Duke Gardens. I looked up this quote and found this: Goldwin Smith is credited with the quote "Above all nations is humanity," an inscription that was engraved in a stone bench he offered to Cornell in May 1871. Further investigations on this quote revealed this blog post from 2007, perhaps inspired by that same 1871 bench at Cornell on global warming.

I found a photo of the Cornell bench, this appears to be and exact replica. The Cornell Chronicle has an article about the bench being broken in 1998.  The article stated that the first bench was quarried from Dr Cornell's own quarry and cost $275 to build. Rebuilding the bench back in 1998 cost an estimated $40,000!

One of these days I'll share with you some of the many many garden benches in the gardens, a few of the best ones were removed for refurbishing the last time I visited the gardens.

New gazebo at Duke Gardens.

 A few weeks ago I visited Duke Gardens and mentioned the new gazebo. Here it is, appears to be mortise and peg built, I saw no bolts securing it together. The arched timbers I would surmise they were 6 x 12 or larger and cut on a huge bandsaw to make the curves, very cool.

 Can you imagine what this will look like when the garden gets going?

 This is the new stairs at the main entry to the garden. I recall the old stairs having a ramp for strollers and wheelchairs? I guess I missed the ramp they had to have by ADA code.

 The new fountain, sorry rose garden....

 The top of the terraces gazebo, if I'm right that is wisteria covering it. Not easy to get a photo of this without somebody inside it. Wish I had a dollar for every wedding that has happened in the lovely spot.

 A view of the terraces looking at the above mentioned gazebo. The flower beds are changed often, one never knows what to expect.

Just a small portion of the 55 acre gardens.

Garden update 3rd week of January ect.

The cold frames have had some new stuff planted. I removed what was left of the nasturtium (which froze) and planted Detroit Red Beets, Early Blood Turnip Beets, Mesclun salad mix. These were planted in the solo cold frame nearest the beehive. This was on January 21.

In the double cold frame left side I harvested(pulled out) half the mustard greens and half the Lactino Kale. I then planted White Stem Bok Choy and Bloomsdale Longlasting Spinach. In the right side cold frame I pulled half the arugula and planted more Mesclun salad mix. Planted these on January 23.

It have been lightly raining for days now. We are hoping as soon as it dries up we'll plant Sugar Snap Peas out in the garden.  We still have a 3 foot tall Sugar Snap Pea patch that was planted last fall and it has frosted tips currently. Do not know if these peas will produce peas or become fertilizer. The Garlic in the garden looks great, the onions are still skinny and puny looking.

Hellebores in the garden 3 mentioned previously are blooming and 25 others have buds on them, several will be open in a few days it appears. The best news is out of those 25 budding plants 3 are my new doubles!

 These hellebores were blooming at Duke Gardens when I visited there last Friday. This one above and below is called Helleborus 'Snow White'. It was a huge clump don't you think?

 To me this hellebore is yellow, no name was given with this one.

Here is Helleborus Erichsmithii 'Winter Moonbeam'

This beautiful red hellebore was labeled at Duke Gardens Pine Knot Double Strain. You can see clearly it did not come out as a double, this happens with hellebores. I have a handful of 2 year plants that could become doubles or end up like this a single.

Crocus, the blues ones look to be rain drowned now and the yellow ones are busting out waiting for a sunny day. Daffodils a few have small buds on them, most are just breaking ground. The snow drops had a bad year it seems. I noted the same thing at Duke Gardens on Friday. Our snow drops are barely out of the ground what is left of them.

Snow Drop from Duke Gardens last Friday.

Duke Gardens did not have any crocus I could find last Friday. This photo was taken in our garden today. At one point there were 3 bees feeding on these crocuses. The bees were busy busy, at one point mid day I could hear them buzzing from our deck 60+ foot away. I did see them again with orange, yellowish and light brown pollen. At one point they were so busy there were 5 bees with pollen not able to get into the hive due to so many bees exiting the hive.

Here are the bees just before lunch, it had been raining and cold for several days. One word busy....