Sunday, October 5, 2014

Flowers, amateur and professional

My fatheads! When was the last time you saw the fuzzy yellow caterpillar of your childhood? Here he is. I forget what butterfly he develops into. This one may not have developed into much of anything, because when I came out to give him a better look a few minutes after taking this picture, he was gone. Either he developed a tremendous burst of energy and went somewhere, or he went into the fixings of some bird's dinner.


He had been exploring the tall fronds of a cleome gone to seed. They are the lovely "spider flower" of midsummer, seen in shades of pink, magenta, and in white, with their long green spokes striking out from the delicate flower head and the upper stem. When was the last time, also, you saw a moonflower in bloom?


I'm told that once these settle in, -- being perennial -- they become rampant, which is fine with me as perhaps then it will help hide an ugly garage back.

You do have to position yourself judiciously to get a good photo of some of the things in your backyard garden; at least I do. Below, some decorative grasses and black-eyed Susans.


One is all the more impressed with a professional effort. Below, a bit of the ever changing beauties of the Lincoln Park Conservatory. Just think, they have the same light as I do. It's the glass walls and the heat and the humidity and the staff and the knowledge and the sourcing and the professionalism that make the difference.




My favorite room in the Conservatory is the Fern Room. My gentleman friend thinks it's boring. I like the huge but subtle variety in all these ancient plants. Some of them are huge, really. Scale is difficult to see, but an adult could stand in the base of these fronds and they would almost reach his head.


 Up close, you see the various species' delicacy.  "A small dinosaur would be at home in this room," the sign says. That is part of the fun, too.



After the Fern Room there are the sumptuous and garish and profligate orchids. We like those, too.

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