Category Archives: Flora

July Back Yard Flowers &c.

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Time for a summer interlude. Back to posting around July 19.

What this country needs is another summer holiday, sometime between Independence Day and Labor Day, and I nominate July 20, to honor the Moon landing. Or the fourth Monday in July, since the 20th is a little close to July 4 — a  Monday holiday to honor the astronauts’ return on July 24, recalling the bit about “returning safely to the Earth,” since the lunar mission wouldn’t have been complete without that.

To keep the accounting snits happy (we can’t afford another holiday!), Columbus Day can be de-holidayed. It’s truly the most insignificant of federal holidays anyway, whatever you think of the Admiral of the Ocean Sea.

New Horizons will fly by Pluto during my interlude. This week’s “glitch” was alarming, but the craft seems to have recovered. (I like the Wired caption: “Among with gobs of planetary science, New Horizons is capturing pictures of Pluto that are increasingly less crappy.”) I will be watching the news closely. Yesterday I came across theses proposed names for geographic features on the Ninth Planet and its moons. Interesting lists. The IAU might not be so keen on fictional explorers and their vessels, however.

Chanced recently across another musical act that I’d pay money to see (and there aren’t that many), namely the Ukulele Band of Great Britain. Pretty much on the strength of their version of the theme from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Too bad the closest they’ll be to me this year is Muncie, Ind., and that isn’t close enough.

Here’s some speculation: Treasury Secretary Jack Lew’s playing a deep game with the $10 and $20 bills. He proposed making Alexander Hamilton second banana on his note to elicit a wave of support for the first Treasury secretary — at the expense of Andrew Jackson. A common notion now seems to be, “Go ahead, get rid of Jackson, but not Hamilton!” Previously, the idea of tossing Jackson in favor of a woman wasn’t so warmly received. But now…

This is a recent headline that amused me: Google Self-Driving Cars Head to Austin, from PC Magazine, which further says that “the company has selected the city to be the next testing location for its autonomous Lexus SUVs…” Austin’s a very safe choice, I figure, especially if you turn the vehicle loose on I-35, where it won’t move very fast, if at all.

Just ahead of rain earlier this week, I went out to take some pictures of flowers. I went no further than my back yard.
July 2015July 2015July 2015July 2015July 2015O Summer,
Oft pitched’st here thy goldent tent, and oft
Beneath our oaks hast slept, while we beheld
With joy thy ruddy limbs and flourishing hair.

Spring Flowers ’15

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Lilacia Park, May 9, 2015

The Lombard park sports a wealth of lilacs, of course, such as this Hyacinthiflora lilac.Lilacia Park, May 9, 2015But also tulips, such as “Antoinnette.”Lilacia Park, May 9, 2015And “Mona Lisa.”Lilacia Park May 2015And “Burgundy Lace,” a fringed tulip.Lilacia Park May 2015Also, good old crabapple trees.Lilacia Park, May 9, 2015This character showed up to entertain. I think. Or maybe he just likes to dress up. Thing 1 and Thing 2 weren’t around.Lilacia Park, May 9, 2015I took some of the pictures and Ann took others.

Peonies Aplenty

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Deep within Spring Valley, here in populous northeastern Illinois, there’s a log cabin built by one John Redeker, son of Friedrich and Wilhelmine Redeker, which sounds like the sort of German family that once farmed the 19th-century Schaumburg. It feels a little remote, but it’s only an illusion. These days, the cabin hosts events and exhibits.

Merkle Cabin, June 2014It’s on the grounds of a peony farm that John briefly ran, but his death in 1930 at 30, and the following Depression and other factors, made it a short-lived enterprise. Still, peonies solider on at the site. Note the bushes in front of the cabin.

Not far away, in a clearing near the cabin, is a field of peonies.

peony field, Schaumburg, June 2014Peony June 2014One more flower, and that's enoughA good place to spend a few solitary minutes.

Never Mind the Bollocks, Here Are June Flowers

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Rain is falling tonight, and more is predicted for tomorrow. So far, we don’t have the makings of a long, dry summer, though of course that could change.

The following are early June flowers at Spring Valley, here in northeastern Illinois. Mostly I don’t know species names, with the exception of the iris, of course. That’s been one of my favorite blooms since I saw them next to the driveway at our house in Denton, Texas, when I was a kindergartener.

Iris, June 2014

Spring Valley, June 2014Spring Valley, June 2014With flowers come bees. For now, anyway.

Bee, Northeastern Illinois June 2014

Here’s hoping whatever ails the bees doesn’t kill all of them, but makes the survivors resistant to the affliction.

Spring Valley Summer

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Northern Illinois is incredibly lush now. Heavy winter snow and consistent spring rain will do that. This is a recent snap at Spring Valley in Schaumburg, Ill. Spring Valley, according to the Schaumburg Park District, “a refuge of 135 acres of fields, forests, marshes and streams.” All you have to do to see it is walk in.

Spring Valley, Schaumburg, June 2014Contrast that with images made at Spring Valley early one April. Remarkable what two months + a certain number of inches of water will do.

These little blue wildflowers cover the prairie areas. Hope they aren’t invasive. Then again, if they are, they add a lot of color here in early June, so maybe they should be welcome colonists.

Spring Valley Flowers June 2014The pond’s also verdant as all get out, layered with lily pads and alive with little fish under them. Spring Valley lily pads, June 2014I’m all for going places, far-away places if possible, but there’s also a lot to be said for near-to-here places.

More About Lilacs Than You Need to Know

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One more shot from Lilacia Park — a peculiar tree. Who doesn’t like tree trunks that splay out in different directions?

More on the story of this beflowered little park is told by Illinois Old Houses (1977) by John Drury, which this web site extracts and asserts the book is public domain. In any case, it says that “… this was the home of the late Colonel William R. Plum, pioneer resident of the village — soldier, lawyer, traveler, writer, horticulturist, and founder of Lilacia Park. Containing more than three hundred varieties of lilacs from all parts of the world, this park is regarded by botanists as the finest lilac garden in the Western Hemisphere.

” ‘In 1911, when we were on a tour of Europe,’ Colonel Plum once told a family friend, Mrs. Annabelle Seaton, ‘we stopped at Nancy, in France, and there visited the famous lilac gardens of Pierre Lemoine. That visit proved my downfall. My wife purchased two choice lilac specimens, a double white and a double purple, and we brought them back to Lombard. From that time on my enthusiasm for lilacs grew and I have never lost interest in them since.’

“When Colonel Plum made this statement, the results of his hobby could be seen all about the old Plum home. Here were all types of lilacs, including one of his favorites, a blue variety called the ‘President Lincoln.’ The shrubs were pleasingly arranged on the Plum estate of two and a half acres, which he called ‘Lilacia.’ Since expanded to ten acres, Lilacia — re-named Lilacia Park — now contains 1,500 lilac bushes as well as 87,000 tulip bulbs.”

The Abraham Lincoln variety, I noticed, is still growing on the grounds of Lilacia Park. So is one named after Gen. Pershing, but most varieties don’t involve famed Americans. As for Pierre Lemoine, he seems to be this fellow, Victor Lemoine (the Spanish version of the page gives his full name as Pierre Louis Victor Lemoine), “a celebrated and prolific French flower breeder who, among other accomplishments, created many of today’s lilac varieties.” Born 1823, died 1911, so I guess you could say he created lilacs for the Belle Époque.

Lilacia Park ’13

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It’s been a while since we visited Lilacia Park in Lombard, Ill., at the height of lilac blossoming. It’s been six years, in fact. I wouldn’t have guessed quite that long. On Saturday I thought it was time to visit again.

I’m glad we went. For the profusion of lilacs, if no other reason. Make that two reasons: their fine sweet smell, which the picture can’t convey.

The tulips aren’t too shabby, either.

It was a flawless spring day, warm but not hot. Yet the park wasn’t jammed with flower seekers, though it was hardly empty. It’s a little-known jewel of the suburbs.