Cherry Blossoms and Toad Love: Meadowlark Botanical Gardens

Sunday — April 4

We had no plans to go out today. The forecasters were calling for an overcast day and there were a ton of things needing attention around the house. By noon, however, the blue skies and brilliant sunshine was giving lie to the forecast. So, around 2:00p, we headed out to a gem of a place I discovered last year, Meadowlark Botanical Gardens, about 15 minutes from our house. (Click here for the June 2009 blog entry.)

Once inside, we went our separate ways. Mom and Mui strolled at a slower pace, making frequent use of the benches around the main pond, which was rimmed with cherry trees at peak bloom. I wandered around the grounds, photographing anything that caught my eye — from frogs and toads (love was definitely in the air), to cherry blossoms, and interesting sculptures.

From sitting here minding his own business ...

… to posturing when another frog leaps into his patch of water.

A toad orgy!

See if you can find the toad (more specifically, Bufo Americanus) eggs in this photograph.
(thanks for the research MZ)

Bath time for a Canada Goose!

That giant cone is big enough to feed a squirrel for a year.

My what big ants they have at Meadowlark.
(not really, but I couldn’t resist)

Sometimes it’s the spur of the moment outings that turn out to be the most rewarding. That was certainly the case today.

Cherry Blossoms: National Arboretum

Saturday — April 3

Cherry blossom time in Washington, DC is one of the best times to visit the nation’s capital — if you can stand the crowds that is. We wanted mom to see the blossoms, so we decided to go to the US National Arboretum this year instead of trying to brave the crowds at the popular Tidal Basin area. On the one hand, this was a good decision; on the other hand, not so much.

The genesis of the cherry trees in DC goes back to 1912, when the city was gifted with 3,000 trees to honor the enduring friendship between the US and Japan. I guess neither country anticipated they would be at war 29 years later. But I digress — that’s neither here nor there for the purposes of this blog. (Besides it’s governments that go to war; not ordinary citizens.)

On March 27, 1912, First Lady Helen Taft and the wife of the Japanese ambassador planted the first two trees from Japan on the north bank of the Tidal Basin in West Potomac Park. In 1965, First Lady Lady Bird Johnson accepted 3,800 more trees, more than doubling the spring color in DC. That we had these cherry trees turned out to be a boon for the Japanese. The US had reciprocated the original gift by giving Japan flowering dogwood trees in 1915, but what completed the circle of giving was when, in 1981, cuttings from our cherry trees were returned to Japan to replace some of the cherry trees that were destroyed in a flood.

So, why was our decision to go to the Arboretum good and not-so-good? It was good, because the crowds were considerably less. On the other hand, we didn’t get the real impact of the glorious color and beauty of the trees when they are seen en masse. Here are a few photographs I took in 2005 when we made a 6:00a pilgrimage to the Tidal Basin to see the trees at peak bloom.

At the Arboretum, the trees were scattered here and there. While we had an opportunity to enjoy the spring color, it just wasn’t the same.

The day wasn’t a dud by any means, however. The bonsai and ikebana exhibits; the Corinthian columns that used to grace the east central portico of the US Capitol; a relaxing picnic lunch; patches of colorful spring flowers — all of these combined with the cherry trees to give us a very nice outing on a day that was more reminiscent of summer than spring.

Bat Flower — a very unusual species with black bat shaped flowers and long ‘whiskers’.
Tacca chantrieri grow wild in the tropical forest in Yunnan Province, China

Contrary to popular belief, the tulip — more correctly, “lale” — originated in Ottoman Turkey.

Magnolia bloom — a delightful source of color at the Arboretum.

Bonsai — Japanese White Pine — in training since 1625.

Left: Bonsai — Foemina Juniper (in training since 1953).
Right: Bonsai — California Juniper (in training since 1964).

The Moon Gate at the Chinese Pavilion.

Rock Penjing — “Autumn Winds” (wucai lingbi stone, Anhui Province, China)
(rock penjing is a scenic landscape rock planting on a tray, an art form started in China thousands of years ago)

Ikebana is the Japanese art of flower arrangement, also known as kadō (the “way of flowers”).

This elaborate ikebana makes use of paper Japanese umbrellas.

This sandstone base and capital are from a Corinthian column that once graced the east central portico of the US Capitol.
More of the columns that were dismantled in 1958 to make way for the east front extension are in the background.

Completed in 1826, these columns provided the backdrop for presidential inaugurations from 1829 (Andrew Jackson)
to 1957 (Dwight Eisenhower) and were the site of many speeches, protests, and rallies.

The Corinthian order is one of the three biggest classical orders of ancient Greek and Roman architecture.
It is the most ornate, characterized by a slender fluted column and an elaborate capital decorated
with acanthus leaves and scrolls.

The reflecting pool doubles the number of columns; a nice backdrop for a photo op.

A mea culpa is in order before I end this blog entry. I asked Mui to drive us by the Tidal Basin on the way back home; I should have known better. The traffic was horrendous from the moment we left the Arboretum. The masses of people jumping in front of the steady stream of cars at the Tidal Basin were worse. I’m sorry I put everyone through the misery of the drive through DC. We didn’t even attempt to find a place to park to get a closer look at the cherry trees; we just got out of dodge as fast as the slow-moving traffic allowed.