Despite record high temperatures last week-end, 88 on Sunday, fall is coming. The low of 39 (with scattered frost) two weeks ago was evidence of impending autumn-ness. And the day length is likewise very telling. Even with idiotic daylight savings time, it’s nearly dark by 7 in the evening and remains dark in the morning until well after 7:30. Not that I have an opinion on daylight savings time. I hear it’s great for golfers. FORE! Anyhow. The point is, it’s feeling a bit like fall no matter what the temperature may be one day or when the sun rises or sets. You can see the evidence, as well.

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Filed under: Art and Nature Park, Horticulture

Let’s cut to the chase. If I don’t do this who will? I can now call myself an “award winning writer”. I recently attended the Garden Writers Association’s annual meeting in Dallas, Texas (more about the actual event later, Jimmy Turner). This meeting is where Garden Writers gives out its Gold Awards. And the good news is….. I won. I won the 2010 Gold Award Best Electronic Media Writing for my posts on this IMA blog you are reading right now. To say the least, it was quite a thrill.

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Filed under: Horticulture

Congratulations from the Indianapolis Museum of Art Blog Team to Irvin, who was awarded a Garden Writers Association 2010 Silver Award of Achievement in the Electronic Media category for his informative, hilarious and tawdry writing on this blog. P.S Your photos are pretty good, too.

As I go about the gardens, I see the honey bees still hard at work gathering nectar and pollen from the late summer and fall flowers.

Soon asters will begin blooming and their flowers will work as hundreds of heliports with bees constantly landing, refueling, reloading, and lifting off all day long. The bees’ lives are lives of extreme order and hard work. Especially hard work. They really do work themselves to death. No time for retirement and its activities – meeting friends for coffee, speed walking in the mall, or wondering why the kids don’t come around more often (or being grateful they don’t). It’s just work til your wings fall off. Then you die. Not unlike those of us in public gardening.

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Filed under: Horticulture

As this less-than-stellar horticultural summer has progressed, I have been less than displeased. Mother Nature has been hateful and spiteful, nearly drowning us then shutting off the rain completely giving us the driest August on record. And through it all she has kept the heat cranked up on high. Undoubtedly she is past the hot flashes. Perhaps the HRT is working. But she pretty much took the joy out of gardening for much of the summer. Well, Old Girl, you took my joy. I want it back.

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Filed under: Horticulture

Just when you thought it couldn’t possibly get any hotter in the garden…….. it does. Naked ladies magically appear all over the place.

Sometimes in the hostas.

Sometimes in the ferns.

Sometimes just right out of the ground.

Cover the children’s eyes. Give Grandpa another nitro-glycerin tablet. Warn the religious right. No, wait. Tell them Resurrection lilies are all over the garden. They won’t know the difference. It’s August and time for the Naked Ladies to put on a show! Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Horticulture