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Dorset Coast, UK, 2024

I've had the privilege of visiting the United Kingdom a few times, but I had never visited the English Channel or the south coast. On a recent backpacking trip up the Thames River with friends in the county of Oxfordshire, my partner and I took the opportunity to explore a small bit the coastal county of Dorset.  Route to the Dorset Coast We had ended our hiking trip up the source of the Thames River in the town of Cirencester, in Gloucestershire. From there, we took a train south to Bristol, then continued south on a train to Dorchester, in Dorset. From there, we caught a double-decker bus to Bridport. In Bridport we hiked with our meager backpacks a short distance down to the connected harbor village of West Bay. Bridport and West Bay, Dorset Since we didn't have a rented car, public transportation was our only option to get around. We chose the town of Bridport and the connected harbor of West Bay as our base for exploring the coastal trails. We chose this location because:...
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Remembering my former city garden

This post is more of a journal entry than a public blog post. It is interesting to me, but won't be too interesting to almost any other reader - except perhaps my partner who was there as a co-conspirator. I want to document my thoughts about the past, my backyard garden, and what we put in it. The size of our city lot was not large. At 100 x 50 ft, there was just enough room for the house, a small garage, and back yard. The driveway was shared with our neighbor. The style of the house was standard American Foursquare, built in 1903. We bought the place in the early 1990's and slowly, over the next 25 years, renovated almost every inch the house and garden. A dry stone wall was built, with terrace bed to break up the height of the wall Caladiums and dragon-wing begonias line the steps of the front porch Well-earned sit-down on the front porch after a busy day Front wall terrace with blue phlox, hostas, astilbe, snap dragons, and coral bells. Front wall terrace, brunnera "J...

Another routine spectacular day in the greenhouse

It has been a sincere pleasure for me to volunteer a few hours a week at the University of Minnesota Botanical Conservatory. After many visits over the last few years, exactly none of those days have felt ordinary or repetitive. If there is a routine , it is that the botanic diversity of the collection - with over 3000 species - is displayed in a spectacular way each day. The Conservatory is located on the St. Paul campus, and is free of charge and open to the public during typical weekday hours. For instance, today most of my allotted time was spent in just one of eight rooms, the room that houses the tropical collection. The chores included pruning, re-potting, spraying, sweeping, etc. As I moved through the room, in every direction, there seemed to be a stunning plant pleading to be admired.  After the chores were complete, I had the opportunity to go back and photograph some of the beauties that surrounded me while working.  Dendrobium tangerinum , Papua New Guinea Dendr...