Philadelphia Flower Show- Don't Call it Trash

 I really liked this commercial exhibit. I thought it was perfect for the theme: Gardens of the Future. It was informative. It was colorful and artistic. It explained some current technology and innovation.

The full title was "Don't Call it Dirt, Don't Call it Trash." The explanation says, "This garden embodies the transformation of materials considered garbage... into recycled glass sand, biochar and compost."

I'll start with the one we are all familiar with- compost. "Food waste is combined with oxygen, water and microbes to break down scraps and make food waste compost." It talks about how much food waste is landfilled, and how Philadelphia now has a commercial composting business that is focused on reclaiming this resource to make rich soil.

They showed some of this soil, nicely decorated with some glass ornaments and garden plants

The glass is an important part of this exhibit, and one that I was a bit surprised at. I was vaguely aware of this use, but this educated me a lot more.

"Glass waste is crushed and seived to make glass sand." The explanation touches on a topic that is hot news in West Michigan- sand mining. It says that sand is an important component of engineered soil blends, and it is one of the most heavily extracted materials on the planet. Sources of construction-grade sand are running out, and there are increasing environmental concerns. (those of us near Ludington have sure heard about that in recent years!) Meanwhile, the US landfills 7 million tons of glass every year. Two businesses in Philadelphia are working to create sand from waste glass.

The display featured glass sand in several colors. I'm sure that for commercial use they don't pay much attention to color, but this was attractive.

I didn't know much at all about the third part of this exhibit. This is about biochar. "Wood waste is chipped and heated without oxygen to make biochar." OK, this is also how they used to make coke to smelt iron. Now I began to understand. This oven/kiln at Marquette along the NCT is one such structure. They would fill it tightly with wood, start it burning, seal it up to reduce the air and let it smoulder until the wood had all turned to charcoal/coke (both are high-carbon fuels mostly differentiated by various cantaminants they contain). This is the kiln at Marquette.


Then it is ground up. OK, so biochar can be used as a soil amendment. Reducing the amount of wood waste that is simply burned in the ordinary manner reduces the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. That burning without much oxygen sequesters the carbon in the charred wood.

This is pure biochar. In actual use, it would be mixed with other soil components.

The exhibit also had some art made from recycled glass that I thought was cute.

The rest of the display featured nice plantings and more garden ornaments made of recycled glass.

I think that showcasing products and technologies like this are an important part of the Flower Show. Some displays I remember from other years are things like capturing rainwater, green roofs, urban gardens to reduce city temperatures, etc.

In other news, I was really tired today. Probably because yesterday was the first vendor event I've tried to do since being sick. I managed to do a few things, and walked 2 road miles with 15 pounds in my pack and an elevation change of 90 feet.

Miles hiked in 2025: 81.

See PFS-Florists of the Future

Rosy Mound Natural Area

 Most of what I did today involved selling books and networking with authors. But there was a longish time gap between the sales time and the evening mingle/fund-raising event for Bluebird Cancer Retreats.

I spent some of that gap time hiking the Rosy Mound Natural Area. I have heard good things about it, so I was happy to finally see it. It doesn't have a ton of trails, but I filled most of my free time.

The main trail, Jean Laug-Carroll Trail, to the beach goes over the dunes. It does this by means of stairs. Hundreds of steps, literally. This is the first view of the lake.

Then I turned and followed the Dune Trail, which is all boardwalk.

Coming back, you can see one of the dunes the trail has to come over.

There is an accessible loop which I also did. I did everything except the spurs to the beach and dunes. I would have had time, but I wasn't sure.

The wind was bitterly cold, but I did manage to get in a walk.

The evening part of the Third Coast Author Event was one of those mingling events where you are supposed to try to talk to people while there is music and noise at about 150 decibels. I participated for a while and then came home.

For some unfathomable reason, I only slept one hour last night, so I did not feel guilty for making apologies and leaving. I'm not very good at that type of social thing anyway. Next stop, bed.

I did all right. Some parts of the event were done well and others can be improved. All in all, not bad.

Miles hiked in 2025: 79.

Rosy Mound Natural Area, Grand Haven, MI. Acorn and White Pine Loops, Jean Laug-Carrol Trail, 2.1 miles

See 8, With Day Pack

Philadelphia Flower Show - Florists of the Future

 I already showed you one display from this exhibit- The Empress' Closet (link below). But this was an extensive display where various student florists from Bucks County Community College Floral Program created entries that might be typical of the year 3025. Probably the most important word in the explanatory sign was "innovative."

I understand how the commercial displays are funded (largely from the Philadelphia Horticultural Society), but I'm not sure about the schools. Various colleges, and even high schools create exhibits. I like it that doing this is considered educational by some schools.

There were at least 11 different dispalys in this exhibit, and some had multiple parts. They were mostly tall and vertical in nature and were thus harder to picture. There was a big emphasis on color. I'm going to just share some of the ones I got the best pictures of.

I'll start with "Galactic Gardens" where various arrangements were given street names. This is Cosmic Boulevard and Space Court.

This one is called "Reviving Radiance." It talks about injecting the plants with organic dyes.

Here's a real closeup of those balls at the base. You can see they are covered with bleached and dyes leaves.

This one is called "The Sky's the Limit."

This one is "Flora ad Astra." The explanation is that "in 3025 it will be remembered that Earth's flora made first contact and rooted the soil for the formation of the first accord of interplanetary species." I thought it was whimsical and probably quite realistic that fungi would be the first plants to find anywhere to live.

I don't know if you've noticed, but the woven strips of reflective paper on the floor tied the whole thing together and added amazing color.

This was one part of "Blooms Beyond Time."

There were even more parts of this, but I think this is enough. I really loved how colorful this one was, and I'm surprised it didn't win any awards.

I did some work; I did my boring 3-mile roadwalk; I did some errands. Ho hum.

Miles walked in 2025: 76.9

See PFS- Empress' Closet

Philadelphia Flower Show - Roots

 I want to point out that not all displays at the Philadelphia Flower Show are stuffed with colorful flowers, and or exotic species of plants; this is a much more natural-looking display. This is one of the commercial ones- they are eligible for different kinds of awards, and this won three of them. One was for the best display of forced blooms (getting plants to bloom at a time that is not natural for them- and this is a big part of the Flower Show. It's largely fantasy, because one could never have a garden that would look like the display ones.)

This exhibit is just called "Roots." The sign says, "Shrouded in mystery because we usually can't see them, roots are key to a plant's life systems..."

I wouldn't want the entire show to be like the un-leafed landscape I left home to escape, but I do appreciate how natural this is. I suspect it's pretty foreign to a lot of the city dwellers who attend.

This photo features a Virginia Pine, Pinus virginianus, which is native to the region of New Jersey and south, so that was perfect for Philadelphia.

Almost every display with a water feature seemed to have found a new "trick." There is some mechanism that allows the water to look very foamy- like it came from a waterfall or whirlpool- but it disperses very quickly and doesn't overwhelm the rest of the water surface. This is a good example of its use.

You can see the needles of the Virginia Pine better in this picture, on the right. Red-osier dogwood in the front. That's also native and appropriate.

And in this picture you can see some of the flowers they forced. Now... keep in mind that most of these are garden varieties, so they shouldn't be found in a natural area like this is portraying. Just remember that we are all there for the fantasy!

The white is Saxifraga x arendsii 'White.' The blue is a Pulmonaria, and the pink is some Dianthus.

I have to confess that I didn't do hardly anything I was supposed to today. I got involved in a pet project and never got to being disciplined.

I'm a little sore (not really bad) from yesterday, and I'm blaming it on that!

See PFS-Store Window

8, with Day Pack

  I looked at the weather for the rest of the week and decided today was the day for a hike to stretch my endurance. I have to be up to 10 miles with a real pack by June.

Where should I go? I'm generally tired of the closest section of NCT to me. However, I chose it, and managed to find something new to do.

Went to Timber Creek and hiked north. One thing I knew for sure, there is more elevation change there than it seems like, if you go beyond 8th St, so it's a pretty good workout. A little sun makes even the brown woods look good. Mostly, it was cloudy.

This is a really common type of moss here. Maybe I've now identified it. Red-stemmed feathermoss, or Schreber's big red stem moss, Pleurozium schreberi. Wikipedia makes it sound like it's only found in the far north, but the Forest Service website puts it almost everywhere in the NE US.

This is another I see a lot of, and it's getting all sexy for spring showing off its sporophytes. Juniper Haircap Moss, Polytrichum juniperus. It has another funky stage in the reproductive cycle. I'll have to start watching for that.

This was fun. It's some polypore fungus of the shelf/bracket type, but I can't tell which one. From the top, it looks like horse hooves, or shelves. The log was fallen, so the "top" of the fungus is from the lower right.

So, how do I know it's a polypore? The underside has many (poly) pores!

I walked 4 miles out, and started back just a few yards so I could find somewhere nice to sit and eat my lunch. Not only was this stump the right height, it had artistic character!

My little project of interest was to try to track the elevation change better on this section. Previously, all I'd done is subtract the low point from the high. That is 1122-791 feet = 331 feet. But that doesn't take into account the ups and downs along the way. Today, I tried to mark in Avenza the tops of all the ridges. I had previously counted 8, but today I marked 7. I guess one has to make choices as to what are just undulations, and what are really ridges.

Anyway, where I turned around is 92 feet lower than the high point. Then the trail drops from the high point to 921 which is 201 feet lower than the high point. Then it wanders up and down over small ridges till it's back to the 791 feet at Timber Creek.

I think I can safely say I climbed and descended a total of about 600 feet. Maybe next time, I'll track it in FarOut which will do an elevation profile. Thing is, it's not too accurate because it doesn't sample often enough.

I'll close with one of my most often pictured scenes from this section, but I always think it' cool. The light is always oddly filtered through this red pine plantation so that it almost always looks red and hazy.

I did a little bit of work, but the hike took the biggest chunk of the day.

Miles hiked in 2025: 73.9. NCT Hike 100: 22.5

North Country Trail, Lake County, Michigan, US 10 (Timber Creek) north to Forest Road 6419 and back. 8 miles

See Familiar- Endurance Edition