Meijer Gardens - Miscellaneous

 
Just a few more things I have nice pictures of from Meijer Gardens. Actually, I have more pictures, but I have to tell you the plants were short on labels and I'm only willing to share a small number of things with no names. Since I don't know much about tropical orchids, and don't care very much either, I'll just say this is a yellow one. There was a temporary display in the conservatory but no labels.



Also in the conservatory were a number of tropical birds. This was the only one I saw. It's a Bishop Weaver from Africa.



They are supposedly developing a moss garden. Now that interests me. But we couldn't see that there were many kinds of moss. However, there was this patch of liverwort. I don't know what kind, but I think it's different from any I've seen before.



Also outside were several of these trees. They have to be a willow with those buds that will open to catkins, but I don't know what kind has bright red buds.



The annual planters were nicely done and still looking good in November. Chrysanthemums and ornamental kale.



And, this cactus, Argentine Giant, Echinopsis candicans, looks like sort of a prickly octopus. I like it! From looking at other pictures, I'd guess this is a pretty large specimen.



Supposed to rain and snow tomorrow. We'll see what I can find to feature.

In other news: I was tired from the weekend. Managed to work a little bit on sorting pictures, and started to clean up the house a bit before Thanksgiving. Steve is coming home again this year!

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Meijer Gardens - Succulents 2 - White Plants

 
I love white plants. Not necessarily white flowers, but plants that are all or mostly white. Here are three from the visit to Meijer Garden last week.

First is the fairly well known Cocoon Plant, Senecio haworthii. It comes from South Africa, but is very often used in containers or indoor succulent gardens because of its stunning color and big puffy cocoon-like leaves. This one is nice and healthy.



The next two are both cacti in the Mammilaria genus, from Mexico. This one has red spines, Silken Pincushion Cactus, Mammilaria bombycina



This one is even whiter, because the spines are white too, but look at the beautiful magenta flowers! Mammilaria geminispina, Twin Spined Cactus. My guess is there are two spines in each follicle. You think?


I think I can eke one more post out of the Meijer Gardens visit if nothing exciting at home comes along.

In other news: I did moderately well at the show. It was well-organized and I made some new friends. Of course several people wanted to look at my cute little trailer. The roads were clear coming home, so that was a much nicer drive. And... can you believe? I know a small handful of people in all of Baldwin, but as I was driving through town, who should be standing beside the street waving to me but hiking buddy, Sue!

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Meijer Gardens - Succulents 1

 
Of course you remember how much I love succulents. I'll show you a few from Meijer Gardens today, and maybe a few more tomorrow.

First of all, here's a semi mystery. The label clearly identifies it as Agave potatorum. I'm not questioning their ID. I'm sort of in awe at the forms this plant can take. This one is obviously huge, and it doesn't look much like my own small one. There could be several reasons for this. The mature plant may just look different from small ones. There could be (certainly are) several varieties. I might have IDed my little one incorrectly (although it looks like all the ones that come up when I query it. Anyway... what interesting leaf edges!



Here's one that's new to me, called Bishop's Cap. You can certainly see why. It's a cactus, Astrophytum myriostigma, native to Mexico.


This was a real treat, because I'd never seen it in bloom. It's called Starfish Flower, or sometimes Carrion Flower, since the flowers stink like dead meat. It's Stapelia grandiflora, and as the species name suggests, the flowers are big. These were about 8 inches across. It's succulent, but not a cactus. It's actually in the same family as milkweed!



Last for today is a wonderful Euphorbia. I've discoursed before about the wonderful and diverse Euphorbias. I've even showed you a small specimen of this very plant Euphorbia stenoclada from the Philadelphia Flower Show. I said it can grow to the size of a tree, and here you go! Looks like Sleeping Beauty's thorny hedge. I really like this! It's from Madagasgar, and they have it labeled with the common name of Silver Thicket.



In other news: I made my expenses at the vendor event today, so tomorrow is all profit. They have allowed me to plug into the church electric, so I have my little heater going, and I'm warm and happy. Got my computer and hot spot. Life is good.

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Meijer Gardens - Carnivorous Plants

 
I'm not going to be able to identify all these perfectly. Not all had labels. But there was a great variety of carnivorous plants.

We have native pitcher plants, Sarracenia purpurea, that look very much like this one, but it wasn't labeled, so I'm not positive. Pitcher plants lure insects into the pitcher where they drown and are then digested.

However, most of the pitcher plants were native to the tropics. Many of these are trees. This is Nepenthes bicalcarata, native to Borneo. Common name Fanged Pitcher Plant. Look under that little hat and you'll see why.





The variety of tropical ones was interesting, although I don't know enough to know if there were many species or just variations of a couple.

This was identified as Red Leopard, a cultured ornamental of Nepenthes sp.

Here are two more- one with that red lip, and another with toothed combs.



Everyone can recognize a Venus Fly-trap. Of course there are lots of species. This one is the common one you can see in the wild, Dionaea muscipula, although a very healthy one. The ones I've seen in swamps are much smaller. They, snap closed when the hairs are mechanically triggered, and they then digest the insect captured.



Of greater interest to me was the Sundew growing in front of it. I've seen two kinds in the wild, this one is different. There are almost 200 species, but only a few grow in North America. I believe I've figured out that this is Drosera adelae, Lance-leaved Sundew, native to Australia. Notice the strap-like leaves. And... it was blooming, with these beautiful tiny red flowers. Sundews have sticky pads on the edges of the leaves to trap insects.

And, I learned something really new. I was not aware there is a carnivorous bromeliad. It also lures insects with a sweet odor and ultraviolet colors to a watery death in a slippery leafy cup. Brocchinia reducta, no common name, and native to South America. It was also blooming.

Hope you enjoyed the tour of this dangerous room (if you are an insect!).

In other news: I wrote in the morning, and spent the afternoon getting organized to leave for the two-day show in Cedar Springs. The trailer is hitched up, and I just need to put some things in it that I need for sleeping and food. It's going to be cold, but, oh well.

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Meijer Gardens - Outside Details

 
Today I'll share some closeups of neat things from Meijer Gardens that were outdoors.

If you are at all familiar with the venue, you know that Fred Meijer had a huge sculpture collection, which is sprinkled liberally throughout the gardens. Maybe I'll show you more of that another day. Maybe not. Anyway, I liked this one quite a bit. It's like a little blip of Thailand dropped in the middle of Grand Rapids.



Bright red Burning Bush (Euonymous) paired with a Clematis in seed was really attractive.



I don't know if this is an oddity, or something I should be able to identify. Look at the ends of the pinnae on this fern. They have sprouted extra fingers. I don't know if this is an example of fasciation, or a characteristic of a particular fern. At any rate, it's weird.



More nice autumn color, this time from a different Japanese Maple.



This is some kind of weeping evergreen. It looks to me like an arborvitae, but I can't find any commercial ones that fall in "sheets" like this. I'm not a fan of weeping trees, but this was interesting because it's like a blue-green waterfall.



Finally, for today, here is one of the bonsai collection, a ginko. Very nice in fall color.


They also have some indoor exhibits, and I'll show some of those tomorrow.

In other news: Well, it was a frustrating day. I did manage to work on the book in the morning a little bit, but I had more computer trouble. I also had an appointment at the computer repair for this afternoon, because one of the issues was just a little tweak that needed to happen to finish the install of the new operating system. I also had a laundry list of some other tiny issues. So when the computer was being weird, I just shut it down and figured Sue could fix it all this afternoon. And she did! Every little item on my list is taken care of! That makes for a very quality day. Then I had bell choir practice. The only thing that's really frustrating is that I was energized to write, and it just didn't happen.

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Meijer Gardens- Long Views

 
About a half hour before the vendor event was going to be done on Saturday, I looked up, and there was my friend Robert! It was perfect because I needed to kill some time before I went to the place where I was going to spend the night. We got some dinner and made arrangements to visit Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids the next day. I've been there twice, but never to actually see the garden!

Today I'll just show you some long views. Of course, this late in the season, many of the outside plants have died back, but that was probably good because we only had about 3 hours we could spend there.

I loved the brilliance of this Japanese maple against the banks of chrysanthemums.



The soft color of plants around the Gazebo, and the reflection in the pond is attractive too. I could have brightened up the image, but chose to leave it soft.



All the waterways are man-made. Each rock was placed with care, and they sure don't look artificial. This is the way to do waterfalls if you are going to build them.




Here's a nice long view of the Japanese Garden. Quite beautiful for November, I think.



Robert is a member, and he's allowed to bring one guest in. We had a wonderful time botanizing, and it didn't cost me a thing! He says that a membership in one of these gardens gives you reciprocal privileges at many gardens across the US. Think about a year of botanical garden visiting!

It was great to see my buddy.



Tomorrow, I'll show you some nifty plant details. You knew I would.

In other news: I wrote all morning and edited and formatted all afternoon. Need to buckle down and do this a lot of days.

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