Spring

There’s more soccer news, plus visitors to Ann Arbor, fireworks, and a road trip, but we’re going back to spring for this post. In between all the other things I was doing, I continued going to the Arboretum and also paid a visit to the Botanical Gardens, to get some dirt under my shoes and get away from the constant traffic noises. In case you hadn’t figured it out yet, I don’t like people/cars/cities/noise in general. Or umbrellas, jeans, scarves, celery, or excessive air conditioning, but we can talk about those other things another time. Right now we’re here to see pictures of plants.

The Botanical Gardens, like the Arboretum, are run by the university. Last time I was there, I went with a friend with a car; this time, it was just me, so I biked. It’s not a terrible bike ride in terms of length or traffic. It was early April when I was there, and I wasn’t sure what would be sprouting/in bloom when I got there.

Lots of life in the outdoor gardens

Turns out, not much. With my vast knowledge of flowers – I can consistently identify about three whole separate flowers (dandelions, tulips, and Queen Anne’s lace) – I wasn’t too disappointed. My favorite thing to photograph at the Botanical Gardens anyway are the cacti. The cacti live inside the conservatory, and I spent some time adding to my collection of cactus pictures. I guess since there aren’t any waterfalls or gorges nearby, I’ve settled for photographing these friendly spike balls.

These guys were in bloom this time

A few weeks later, I was back at the Arboretum hoping to catch the leaves coming out. The peony stalks had made their appearance, but there still wasn’t much else growing. (I finally figured out this year that tree peonies are bushes and herbaceous peonies are stalks that die/regrow each year. There are also Itoh or Intersectional peonies that are a cross between tree and herbaceous peonies.) The undergrowth was coming in and some leaves were budding, so I did end up getting a few pictures. Soon after this, we entered peony watch season, which is a whole other event in itself. More on that later.

Top left: peony stalks.  Top right: undergrowth starting to come in.

Bottom: leaves.