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By Sarah ModicBradley, HF&G Natural Resources Specialist Around these parts it’s not all too uncommon to engage in a conversation about your big weekend plans to… weed the garden beds! Much of the horticulture staff devote countless hours throughout the week to weeding Holden’s precious beds, and then return home to tend to their very […]
By Alexa Wagner, Doctoral Graduate Student Ohio’s forests have changed over the last 200 years. Few old-growth forests remain as much of the land was timbered and cleared for agriculture in the early 19th century. Most forests in the northeastern U.S. sit on land used for agriculture as recently as 40 to 85 years ago. […]
By Mary Brennan, HF&G Volunteer and Ohio Volunteer Pollinator Specialist Hello again! So, did you see any Bumble Bees this week? Aren’t they grand? I love how some have hair that looks like velvet while others look like they are definitely having a “bad hair day.” If you were fortunate enough to see that, and […]
By Mary Brennan, HF&G Volunteer and Ohio Volunteer Pollinator Specialist Summer is in full swing with warm days, lots of sunshine, a bright display of a multitude of flowers and the sweet drone of bees flying from blossom to blossom. It’s not hard to notice that the most loudest buzzing is coming from the biggest […]
By Katie Stuble, HF&G Research Scientist You’ve heard the phrase “the early bird gets the worm”. We use it to indicate that getting somewhere first can come with big benefits. It’s snagging the choicest donuts in the office lunchroom, or the best seats in the movie theater. And so it goes in the natural world. […]
By Mary Ann Wagner, HF&G Volunteer Mid July brings a riot of color to the Arlene and Arthur S. Holden Jr. Butterfly Garden at the Holden Arboretum. There are also “flying flowers” – butterflies – which bring an extra dimension to the garden. Some of these are large and easily identified as they fly by, […]
Cleveland Botanical Garden This is a walker’s self-guided tour through the Gardens inside-and-out that will help us to discover the magic of local Nature in July. Every month is a new top-ten list! COSTA RICA BIOME: BUTTERFLIES AND THEIR FLOWERS. July is the best month to view our neo-tropical butterflies. They love flying in the bright sunlight and sipping nectar from lantana, coralberry […]
By Connor Ryan, HF&G Rhododendron Collections Manager One of my favorite parts of my job as Rhododendron Collections Manager is plant propagation – creating and growing new plants for our grounds and for our patrons. This is a routine part of the work all public gardens do. We propagate plants to display on our grounds, […]
By Mary Brennan, HF&G Volunteer and Ohio Volunteer Pollinator Specialist Greetings to all! Now that we know a little of what pollination is, I thought it might be helpful to be able to pick out just what is flying around the flowers. Not knowing could mean we are tempted to swat at almost anything – […]
By Rebecah Troutman, HF&G Natural Areas Biologist Our team handles the birds we study with the utmost care. Here’s a little more about how we net and handle the juncos: Birds are captured in mist nets (very fine-strand nets that are nearly invisible). We use a decoy and recordings of their songs to attract territorial […]
By Sarah Kyker, HF&G Research Associate Some of the most fun stories we have in science are about surprising discoveries. Most people think of these as “eureka” moments. We can picture a scientist in a lab seeing something unexpected and shouting with excitement. “Eureka!” But, in science, these “eureka” moments don’t really exist. When we […]
By Mary Brennan, HF&G Volunteer and Ohio Certified Volunteer Naturalist In this week’s post, we’ll talk about what pollination is. Let’s begin with the flower. Whether it’s a flower on a tree, bush, grass, food crop or in a forest, field or your backyard, most flowers need other flowers in order to produce seeds to […]
By HF&G Horticulturist Dawn Gerlica One of the most common reasons people decide to start home vegetable gardens is to get good tomatoes. Science has developed tomatoes for grocery stores that are easier to transport across the country without becoming mush, but those little golf ball mimics are missing the taste and texture of a […]