The Georgeson Botanical Garden & Other Alaskan Flora

Posted on August 10, 2021 by admin

One of the channels on my hotel TV in Fairbanks was essentially a continuous commercial for places to visit in that part of Alaska. All kinds of tourist activities or things to buy to remind you of your visit.

Here’s a thought for the Great Alaskan Bowl Co. of Fairbanks: noting that your product was featured in the 2017 “Made in America Week” event at the White House, however much of an honor that might seem to be, and however excellent your paper-birch wood bowls might be, could be a way to alienate as many potential buyers as it impresses. Just a thought.

The only TV recommendation I took to heart was a suggestion to visit the Georgeson Botanical Garden on the campus of the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

At the end of July, the eight-acre garden is a lush place, flush with flowers and varieties of vegetables I wouldn’t have associated with Alaska. But I am horticulturally ignorant. The growing season is short in the subarctic, but there is a growing season.

Flowers.

Vegetables.

Including the largest cabbages I’ve ever seen.

“The Georgeson Botanical Garden began in 1989 as a research, educational, and public outreach program,” the garden web site says. “However, its roots lie much deeper. In 1898, 31 years after the US purchased Alaska, the Secretary of Agriculture of the USDA sent [a] special agent of agriculture, Charles Christian Georgeson, to Alaska to explore the agricultural potential of the state.”

Georgeson established seven agriculture stations in the territory, two of which still exist, one in Fairbanks and one in Matanuska.

“The Fairbanks experiment station was established in 1906 and in 1931 the farm was incorporated into the Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines (renamed the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 1935). [By the 1980s]… UAF proposed turning the muddy paths and straight rows of trial plants into a space that is more accessible and welcoming to the public.”

Why do cabbages (and cantaloupes and broccoli and others) grow so large in Alaska? It might be counterintuitive, but NPR offers an explanation.

“It’s Alaska’s summer sun that gives growers an edge, says Steve Brown, an agricultural agent at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Basking in as much as 20 hours of sunshine per day, Alaskan crops get a photosynthesis bonus, allowing them to produce more plant material and grow larger. Brassicas like cabbage do especially well, says Brown.”

Elsewhere I saw plenty of other intriguing flora, including the main kinds of trees in the state, such as spruces, black cottonwood, paper birch, quaking aspen, alder and balsam poplar.

Fireweed. Late summer is its time, and I saw it everywhere.

“The fireweed we know in Alaska — Chamerion angustifolium — proliferates during summer, aggressively erupting in open spaces before cottoning in the turn toward fall,” the Anchorage Daily News says.

“Fireweed is common throughout much of the northern hemisphere. In Canada, it is the willowherb. In the United Kingdom, it is rosebay willowherb….

“The ‘fire’ in the name derives not just from the vivid color of the flower itself but from its tendency to grow in areas cleared by fire. As fireweed favors open, cleared and dry land, it was among the first plants to grow in the wake of the 1980 Mount St. Helens volcanic eruption in Washington state.”

Back Yard Summer Flora ’21

Posted on June 29, 2021 by admin

Rain again in the morning. Tomorrow maybe more. Moderate temps in the meantime. I understand that we’ve traded places, weather-wise, with the Pacific Northwest, which is remarkably hot and dry for the moment.

By afternoon it was again dry enough to sit on our deck. I also did a survey of the flowers of the back yard, including those springing from the damp earth.

Those in pots on the deck.

And along the fence.

“Summer afternoon — summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.” — Henry James

Thursday Extras

Posted on May 13, 2021 by admin

This was in a window we walked by in west suburban Wheaton not long ago. I like the neon. Who doesn’t like neon? Who doesn’t like gelato? I’d never had any gelato until I went to Florence. That was a great place to experience it for the first time.

We didn’t stop by for any gelato. We did buy a couple of most delicious pastries at a nearby place called Suzette’s.

I found this card in Peoria recently. Near Bradley U. Not at the store itself, but while picking up food at Jerk Hut, where we bought some tasty jerk chicken.
Interesting that the students of Bradley, some of whose parents weren’t around for the original iteration of hippies, would support such a business. Then again, the key might be in that now-obsolete code term tobacco accessories.

I heard a few seconds of an ad on YouTube recently featuring a young Brit walking along the Thames, with the Tower Bridge in the background, to make absolutely sure we know he’s British, as if his dialect didn’t tell us that. He said something along the lines that such-and-such was going “redefine the way you think about men’s makeup.”

Fat chance, ya limey bastard. I can sum up my thinking on men’s makeup in one pithy sentence that isn’t going to change: I’m never wearing any.

Got a press release the other day from someone — some automated mailing list — that doesn’t appreciate my commercial real estate beat.

“With #chlorophyll and #chlorophyllwater trending on social media, I wanted to put Chlorophyll Water® (the only bottled, pre-made chlorophyll drink on the market) on your radar, as it’s selling out in retailers across the country,” the release asserted.

“A favorite amongst Kourtney Kardashian, Rosario Dawson, Mandy Moore and Aly Reisman, Chlorophyll Water® is a plant-powered purified water enhanced by nature with the addition of Chlorophyll, a key ingredient and the distinct green pigment in plant life.”

I probably won’t be a consumer of that product, but who knows? Chlorophyll might be tastier than I think. Also, glad to report that I’ve only heard of two of those celebrities, only one of whom I can acknowledge has some talent.

Received some direct mail the other day promising better lawns through chemistry. It is spring, after all. As chilly as temps have been, it’s still green out there. Anyway, on the outside of the envelope, it says:

Dandelions. Crabgrass. Weeds.

Act now to stop those lawn problems and receive your 20% neighborhood discount.

Plus a FREE Core Aeration. See details inside.

Problems, you say? I say it’s biodiversity. The suburbs need it, too.

This is a gimme letter envelope I had to scan, from a statewide advocacy org with its eye on utility rates. I suspect the risk is pretty small, considering the distinct history of the two states.

You know, in some other context, some other organization might be sending letters screaming, Texas Cannot Become Illinois.

Lilacia Park ’21

Posted on May 11, 2021 by admin

RIP, Helmut Jahn. I never met the man, but I worked in the same building in downtown Chicago as his office, once upon a time. The superb 35 East Wacker, as it happens, where Jahn had his showroom in the top dome. We were on the seventh floor. We could always tell when architects were on the elevator, headed up to Jahn’s office; they were the gentlemen with ponytails.

Lilacia Park, like Cantigny, is in the western suburbs, in Lombard as it happens, only a few miles to the east and a little north. Early May is the time of the lilac blooms there, and it’s been a fair number of years since we went, so we decided to drop by Lilacia on the way home on Saturday.

The park didn’t disappoint, though I think it was a few days past peak for lilacs, to judge by the effusions of flowers I’ve seen in earlier years.

But not for tulips. Definitely peak blooms for many of them.

Lilacia was crowded too. Especially with prom and quinceañera celebrants.

“Lilac bushes are not native to North America,” explains Flower magazine. (Just like most of us.) “The Common Lilac originated in Eastern Europe in the mountains of Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania. For centuries, the Turks cultivated the species.

“Then, in the 1500s, lilac bushes arrived in Vienna and Paris. The French developed so many varieties that Common Lilac is often called French hybrid or simply French Lilac. Finally, these European specimens made the journey to the New World, and lilac bushes graced the gardens of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.”

And, I have to add, the former garden of Col. William Plum and his wife Helen Maria Williams Plum in Lombard, Illinois.

“Colonel Plum moved to the Chicago area in 1869 and settled in Lombard when it was still a new village. The Plums purchased land and filled it with lilacs, which they fell in love with after traveling to the celebrated gardens of Victor Lemoine in France,” Atlas Obscura says.

“The couple returned from the trip with two lilac cuttings, one of Syringa vulgaris, ‘Mme Casimir Périer,’ a double white, and the other of Syringa vulgaris, ‘Michel Buchner,’ a double purple — the initial cultivars of the collection that stands today.

“The acclaimed landscape architect Jens Jensen — responsible in large part for the design or redesign of Chicago’s Columbia, Humboldt, Garfield, and Douglas Parks — agreed to design the Lombard Community Park, now known as Lilacia Park.”

Cantigny in May

Posted on May 10, 2021 by admin

It looks like Cantigny Park has taken the opportunity posed by the international health crisis to do some work on Col. McCormick’s mansion. This is what the outside of the mansion looked like on Saturday.

We didn’t visit to see the mansion, which we toured some years ago. Instead we wanted to see the grounds in spring. The day was cool — it’s been a cold spring lately — but not bad for a walkabout among the greenery.

And the flowers.

Lots of flowers.

Along with other plants.

We haven’t been to Cantigny in a number of years. More recently than 2010 or 2011, but I don’t remember exactly when. On Saturday we also spent a little time at the McCormicks’ grave, in the shape of an exedra, which isn’t far from their mansion.

Though a little chilly (mid-50s), it was a festive day at Cantigny.

People are gathering in groups once more this spring, or so anecdotal evidence, such as seeing them at Cantigny, tells me.

Southern Loop ’21 Scraps

Posted on May 2, 2021 by admin

Near-summer weather to a tee visited northern Illinois over the weekend — next week will be chillier, I read — with cloud puffs ambling along the completely pleasant warm air, except maybe for persistent strong gusts of wind, a mild sirocco. Those gusts didn’t keep us from walking the dog or me from idling on our deck, reading or resting my eyeballs, but they did put the kibosh on taking any meals as a family out there.

My stop in New Madrid, Missouri, on April 10 was brief, but long enough to get a look at the handsome county courthouse.

“Cornerstone ceremonies were July 4, 1915, for the Classical Greek Revival style building of white sandstone and porcelain brick with a copper box laid in the northeast corner containing copies of all New Madrid County and St. Louis newspapers and carefully prepared historical events, including the names of the citizens who contributed the $20,000, names of all county officers, etc.,” says the courthouse web site. Sounds like a dull time capsule, but never mind.

“Additional funds for finishing the courthouse and jail were authorized early in 1917, but no bids were received… Finally, W. W. Taylor, a master builder from Cape Girardeau, superintended final interior work, which included marble stairways with cast iron railings and a large rotunda with a stained glass window in the ceiling that was completed in January 1919.”

Closed on Sunday. Maybe closed for the pandemic, anyway, so the marble and stained glass and more weren’t visible to me. Hope the courthouse was built to resist seismic events (as much as possible 100 years ago), or refit in more recent years.

A survey marker at Fort Pillow State Historic Site, Tennessee. Always interesting to run across one.

A view of the Mississippi at Fort Pillow.

A retail scene from Clarksdale, Mississippi. Something Amazon cannot replace.

Despite the glowing neon, the shop — called Cat Head — wasn’t open on a Sunday morning.

A scene from rural Mississippi, where perhaps the landowner recognizes no political authority.

Even in small-town Mississippi, you’ll see these.

The American Rose Center is a 118-acre wooded spot just west of Shreveport, and home to the national headquarters of the American Rose Society.

I was a few weeks too early. A few roses were in bloom, but not many. Mostly still buds, and a lot of them. Even so, lovely grounds.

Including a Japanese-style pavilion.

As I said, a few blooms.

You don’t have to go all the way to Corsicana, Texas, to buy a fruitcake at the Collins Street Bakery. There’s a store just off I-20 in Lindale, Texas, with a cafe and a towering sign. I stopped and bought a big fruitcake, which is mostly gone now, eaten a bit at a time by me, Jay, Yuriko and Ann.

In Grand Saline, Texas, a town that salt built, is a structure called the Salt Palace Museum and Visitors Center, which is on Main Street.

Palace it is not, though it is built partly of salt, and there’s a big block of salt to examine out front.

When in Paris, Texas, what does one naturally go to see? The Paris, Texas, Eiffel Tower, of course. Despite the rain.

Less well known is a memorial to the Paris Tornado of 1982. It killed 10 people, injured many more, and did a lot of property damage.

It’s in the same park as this sad-looking memorial.

That’s the Bywaters Park Memorial, with a plaque that says: In grateful memory of J.K. Bywaters, who gave this park to the people of the city he loved so well. 1916.

In Fort Smith, Arkansas, I spotted this mural.

Which is on the backside of this building — First National Bank — next to the bank’s drive-through lanes.

In Bella Vista, Arkansas, which is in the extreme northwest part of the state just south of the Missouri line, is the Mildred B. Cooper Memorial Chapel, a structure dating from 1988, designed by designed by E. Fay Jones and Maurice Jennings. Jones is best known for the Thorncrown Chapel, also in Arkansas.

Sure, the sign said an event was in progress. A wedding, of course, since my visit was on a Saturday. But I saw people clearly dressed for a wedding pouring into the parking lot as I arrived, so I figured I might have caught the place between weddings.

No. People were still inside, with some kind of event going on, so I figure as soon as one wedding ceremony is over on a warm spring Saturday at Mildred B. Cooper, another gets underway. I took a good look at the exterior, anyway. Understated elegance.

In Collinsville, Illinois, you can see the “world’s largest catsup bottle.”

It has its own fan club and web site.

“This unique 170 ft. tall water tower was built in 1949 by the W.E. Caldwell Company for the G.S. Suppiger catsup bottling plant — bottlers of Brooks old original rich & tangy catsup,” the site says.

Philistines almost had it torn down. “In 1995, due to the efforts of the Catsup Bottle Preservation Group, this landmark roadside attraction was saved from demolition and beautifully restored to its original appearance,” the site continues.

The Pink Elephant Antique Mall in Livingston, Illinois, not far northeast of St. Louis, has a big pink elephant in front, as I’ve posted. But that’s not all. Not by a long shot.

This is the mall — a complex of buildings stuffed with antiques, collectibles and other junk. There’s a diner, too.

I didn’t inspect them closely, but I take the statues out front to be made of fiberglass (maybe cast in Wisconsin).

A sign under that fellow wearing the MAGA hat — now, what was his name again? — said NOT A POLITICAL STATEMENT. LOVE HIM OR HATE HIM.

Finally, the grounds included something I’ve long wanted to see, but never had gotten around to, a Futuro House.

The windows, some completely open, were at about eye level for me. Ever wonder what’s in a Futuro House?

Not much, at least this one.

Pine Removal

Posted on March 18, 2021 by admin

Not long ago, I noticed that a tall pine tree in a neighboring yard was dead all the way up. It had long been one of those pines whose lower branches died off, but whose top branches were still green year-round. No longer.

Our neighbor must have noticed this too, because one fine morning recently at about 8, the noise of tree removal started. I heard that, of course, but what really got me out of bed was our dog, who took a loud interest in the goings-on. I was thus up, so I figured I might as well take a few pictures.

By the time I got around to that, the crew has stripped off the lower branches of the tree and feed them to a chipper. That was the real source of the noise, not the cutting of the branches.Rather than remove the top limps, the pro tree-climber got into position —— to cut off the whole top. Repeat until the whole tree was gone. But I didn’t stick around for that, breakfast was calling.

Indiana Dunes National Park

Posted on September 22, 2020 by admin

Officially the park service entity occupying part of the Lake Michigan shore of Indiana, along with some adjacent lands, is Indiana Dunes National Park. Has been for about a year and a half now, for the usual reason: a Congressman from the region had the pull to promote it from its previous sub-park designation, national lakeshore, to national park.

Not much has changed besides the name. Even the signs have the old name. Signs cost money.

We’ve visited two or three times over the years, including one memorable time when Lilly’s stroller was difficult to push on sandy trails. That’s how long ago it was. Stroller issues have long been a non-issue for us, but even so the national lakeshore seldom suggested itself as a place to visit, maybe because the main way to get there — the highways running south of Lake Michigan — are often congested chokepoints.

We decided to go on September 18 for the day. The weather was flawless for walking around: clear and in the mid-60s. Got a later start than planned, so it was more of a visit for the afternoon. But a good one, focused on some short trails.

The trailhead of a small loop called Dune Ridge Trail.Mostly the trail wasn’t sand-dune sand, but even the more packed underfoot soil forming the trail was sandy.
There was a climb, but not too bad.
Leading to views of an expansive marsh.Later in the afternoon, we walked along the Great Marsh Trail.
A great marsh all right.
Still wildflower season in northern Indiana.
Indiana Dunes National Park Leisure to stroll among the short-time green?
We’re fortunate to have it.

NW Suburban Tree in Motion

Posted on August 18, 2020 by admin

Occasionally I wake up in the wee hours and have trouble falling asleep again, which I figure must be true for a lot of people. That happened this morning at around 4. One strategy to deal with that is to put a very familiar album on the CD player/tape deck on the night table. Familiar and not too loud. I listen to the first song or two and then realize I’m listening to the last, or one of the later songs on the album, having slept through the rest.

That didn’t work this morning, so I just waited for sleep to return as the morning light began to creep into the room. Then I remembered I needed to put gas in my motorcycle, so I put the nozzle in the right place, and sat down at a small cafe table under an umbrella for a cold drink, trusting the pump to shut off automatically. Mm. I’ve never owned a motorcycle, I thought. Ah, I’m dreaming.

Later in the morning, when I was fully awake, I was in the back yard for a few minutes, enjoying a pleasant breeze.

I’m fairly sure that’s an aspen in my back yard, just on my side of the fence. I’ve seen it grow quite tall over the years. It will be one of the first to turn color for the fall — a few leaves are already yellow, I see.

I’ve read that they’re sometimes called quaking aspens. Or trembling aspens. The names certainly fit today.

Return of the Zhu-Zhus

Posted on August 11, 2020 by admin

“A line of severe storms slammed through downtown Chicago and surrounding areas Monday, downing trees and power lines, which sparked fires in the city, officials said,” CNN reported last night. That, and there was some riotous looting too.

“More than a million homes and businesses in the Midwest are without power, including a third of all of customers in Iowa,” CNN continued. “The wind was so strong when the storm passed through Perry, Iowa, it blew pieces of boards from other buildings into the walls of a house.”

So we lucked out. As I mentioned, the winds were fairly tame in my tiny corner of the world. After such wind and rain as we had had passed yesterday, I went out in the yard to pick up items that moved around a little, such as one of the deck chairs. The sun had returned and I noticed the rain-speckled hibiscus picking up the light.Today we opened up a box that has been sitting in our laundry room for a good many years, tucked under a few other boxes. I call it a laundry room, but being home to the washer and dryer is only one of its functions. Crap we don’t want to put partly out in the elements — in the garage, that is — goes there.

On Saturday, since this is a Summer of Nowhere, I spent a fair number of hours in the garage, till the trash bin was mostly full and garage crap had been rearranged somewhat.

Back to the box. Among many other things, it contained five Zhu-Zhu Pets. Mechanical hamsters, since I’m not sure they rise to the level of robot hamsters.

Ann marveled at them. Her 17-year-old self reflected on how important they were to her seven-year-old self. She got her first one for that birthday. Like most toys, they were important until they weren’t.
What amazed me was that the batteries have held out on all of them. They all still move around and make various preprogramed noises.

That’s about 20 seconds of randomly selected Zhu-Zhu Pet sounds, squeaks and whirs coming directly from 2010 to you in 2020.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Category Archives: Flora