Pollinators at Work

Honeybee on an early bloomer in the Rose Garden, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Mother's Day '14.

Carpenter bee on Camassia Quamash, Heather Garden, Fort Tryon Park.

Honeybee working a  heath blossom in the Heather Garden.

Honeybees collect pollen, which they take back to the hive to feed their young and themselves. With the long winter and late spring we've had, my guess is that the bees in these photos are collecting pollen, but it's impossible for me to tell.  Bees collect nectar to make honey, usually when the weather is consistently warmer.   Bees make beeswax and propolis too.  

Carpenter bees are pollinate also.  Due to the strength of their thoracic muscles they can actually loosen pollen from flowers that other pollinators can get at.  This ability is referred to as "buzz" pollination or "sonification."  

Apres le Deluge, the Blooms

Over 5 inches of rain fell in Central Park two days ago.  Yesterday by noon by the sun was shining and streams were receding, though puddles remained as the temperature climbed to 70 degrees.  Is there anything more diverse than the weather?  Perhaps the plant world. . .

Late-blooming heath heats up the Heather Garden

Once again Fort Tryon Park called out, in part because I wanted to be on higher ground (That means I needed to climb  steps to meet my Fitbit goal of 40 flights per day.) and in part because it was May Day!  All of the flora pictured here is in the Heather Garden.  

A bumble bee "working" the heath.

Species tulips like these caused a financial crisis in 1637.

Will these azaleas be in bloom by the weekend?  It sure looks that way.  Bring on the reds!

Azalea form the backbone of the long perennial border in the Heather Garden.

Personal Best!

Have you been stepping it up?

I have.  Yesterday I logged 21,600 steps, a personal best.  I walked 9.06 miles, half in Northern Manhattan and half in Chelsea, the West Village, and Soho.  The hills around home, plus a few subway stair climbs, brought my floors total to 48.  My Fitbit is on fire!

I've been stepping it up in NYC Parks, including Fort Tryon Park, where these beautiful old granite steps were among the many I climbed yesterday.

Stone steps near the Heather Garden

Can you imagine how many steps were logged by the people who built these steps?  Up and down, and up and down, measuring before the stone was even ordered.  Preparing  the site for the steps. Getting the granite to the site. Cutting the granite. Fitting the stones.  It's mind boggling how much work was involved in the creation of this magnificent park.  I honor the energy of those who designed, engineered, built, and maintain Fort Tryon Park.  Their efforts inspire me to keep stepping it up.

Spring Forthwith

Are you dazed and confused, having missed an hour of sleep? It's daylight savings time! March 9, let's face it, is way too early for daylight savings.  How about just regular daylight?  The snow is melting, and there are signs that spring is afoot but not quite sprung. 

A recent tour of Fort Tryon Park on March 7 revealed salty sidewalks and snow on the hillsides. Will the winter of 2014 ever end?

A Portal from Winter into Spring

Blooming heath was a pleasant surprise.  

Pink Erica in the Heather Garden

Yellow Erica

Spring can't be far away when four NYC Parks workers trim one rose bush. Two of them were   pruning the rose and two of them were staring at the one small tarp that had been laid down on the sidewalk  for the thorny stems yet to come. 

On the more westerly side of the Heather Garden one of the surest harbingers of spring--witch hazel--showed off its pretty orange petals against the snow.  Native Americans taught the colonists how to use the leaves and barks of this multi-stemmed shrub to create an astringent for skin sores. It was an all-purpose liniment found in everyone's medicine chest a mere 50 years ago.  

Witch Hazel

Andromeda's Red Blooms

With March still in its lion phase, the Heather Garden had two additional 

spring beauties to share, Andromeda and Magnolia.

Magnolia Buds

Perhaps on my next walk I shall see the March lamb. . . 

Fort Tryon Park Snow Day

Today the park screamed:  get outside and walk!  From the stoop I knew it was going to be a beautiful walk.

Mare's tails and contrails 

Walking down one hill to climb another, with my Fitbit http://www.fitbit.com/store?gclid=CLCLw6mxurwCFU7xOgodDQ0A4Q securely fastened,  my goal was to do some serious walking and climbing. I chose to explore Fort Tryon Park. https://www.forttryonparktrust.org/ Unlike Central Park, which is a landscape created by man, Fort Tryon is a "natural" park.  Fort Tryon Park  was designed by Frederick Law Olmstead Jr.,  (son of the man who created Central Park) in the 1920s and built by workers during the Works Progress Administration.  The park contains 67 acres, much of it with breathtaking views of the Hudson River and the Palisades in New Jersey.  

Carriage road to the Cloisters built during the WPA.  Icy Hudson River on the right.

Fitbit clocked 14 floors climbing the hill to The Cloisters, a medieval museum that is part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and that sits on a bluff overlooking the Hudson. Housing a collection of some 2,000 pieces of medieval art, the Cloisters http://www.metmuseum.org/visit/visit-the-cloisters is a mélange of sacred and secular buildings from France and Spain, predominantly, that only some rich Americans, among them John D. Rockefeller, Jr.,  could have collected and glued together in an melting-pot way 75 years ago.         

12th-century apse from Spain reconstructed in NYC

South entrance of The Cloisters

Deeper in the Park lies the Heather Garden, the largest collection of heaths and heathers on the East Coast. The many plants in this three-acre site with stunning views of the Hudson and the Cloisters were blanketed in snow, disturbed only by a lonely jogger.

Heather Garden in Winter

Onward I walked, out of the Park,   south to West 181st Street, where I stopped in at a Russian grocery store to eye the caviar and other exotic foods.  Without a purchase, I turned 'round and headed back home via the city streets.  

By the end of the day I had taken 12,600 steps for 5.37 miles, had climbed 46 flights, and  burned 2050 calories.  Plus I got some much-needed Vitamin D with my time in the sunshine.  Yay, Fitbit!