Investigating the Tulip Library

When I went to visit the cherry blossoms in DC a few weeks ago I stumbled on the Tulip Library, which is also near the Tidal Basin. I was excited by it, but there were no brochures or other information available. I only knew it was the Tulip Library because some excited kid came running up to his mother to report that he found the sign.

At home, I didn’t have much luck. Little research is on the web and the National Park Service write up mostly just mentions the history of tulips. The most helpful was this 2007 blog entry from Washington Gardener magazine. (Hmmmm…note to self…change blogger theme.) They have a link to a PDF of an old brochure, which was better than nothing. If Tulip Library had been here in Baltimore City I would have the good old Pratt library vertical file to play with. (Yes, I know that this garden is in another city. But I also like to write about places within easy driving distance of Baltimore because most gardeners love to visit other gardens.)

Well, with my arm still on the injured list and my ability to do a lot of typing and mousing curtailed, I pulled out the Tulip Library research and put up an article. It is not what I wanted, but if I don’t do this now the topic won’t be relevant again until next year. (Then, I can revisit it and do a slideshow or something.)

The photo at the top of this post was my first choice for the article, but it looked too similar to the photo on the National Park Service PDF and also to the one I selected for Sherwood Gardens. Tulip gardens are rather hard to photograph at times because of the way the flowers are spaced. If I don’t get a good angle and lots of flowers blooming at the same time I end up with a picture of little dots of color amidst the dirt.

A City Garden and Examiner Thoughts

Hmmm…I thought of titling this entry “lettuce behind bars” but thought better of it.

The other evening after work I went down to City Hall here in Baltimore to take pictures and get some writing material. This garden was great for me last year because I could just report on it monthly and it gave me an interesting series with lots of photos. This year, I hear that budget cuts and practicality trumped over the free flowing and widely varied design of last year. Actually, it doesn’t look too bad, except for this black netting. I assume it is there to keep both people and critters away. But, this being Baltimore city if people or rats wanted the vegetables they would just cut the net and take them.

They don’t have any educational materials out for this garden yet, but I did notice labels on almost everything this year. Some had cute little signs but others at least had plastic sticks. To see any differences see my current article and then go look at the article from this time last year. There are some similarities, but I miss the free design and the kohlrabi.

In other news, I got an email about changes with the Examiner web site but I’m not sure how this will pan out. They want to create more of a social network, which I think is a great idea long past due. Right now, everyone that wants to comment can only leave his or her name and comment and it is not linked to a profile or anything. So, I feel like a complete stranger if I comment even though I’ve been writing there for a year now. I would like to be able to leave a connection to my profile. I think this would be valuable in hooking up with other Examiners or even just interacting with the readers. It doesn’t look professional when I can’t leave a signature of some sort.

Another thing is that Examiner is going to “archive” past articles and we won't be able to edit them. They said we’d get some warning, but I’ve been working on tightening up my old articles so I’m going to step this up. In my old articles I don’t have many links to my other articles, nor do I have the “more info” paragraph with links to my Twitter page and this blog. I want the appearance of my page to be consistent.

Wordless Wednesday – National Shrine Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes

(Their web site.)

Rainy Day Dianthus

This morning on my walk I noticed these dianthus. They were so bright on this rainy morning that they almost won’t photograph well because the color is too intense. I’ve always liked dianthus. Then, a couple of days ago when I was shopping with a friend he said that they looked like “little stars”. Yes, I can see that, especially on a gray day like today.

By the way. I'm quite happy with my new Sherwood Gardens article, which includes a slide show. I've resolved to do more slide shows this year. It is a kind of visual reporting that I like because I carry my camera everywhere.

Elbows, Sherwood Gardens and Graveyard Lilies

Owww….after all of the “advice” I give people about garden safety I hurt myself while gardening yesterday. Actually, I had been feeling a twinge in my elbow all week but I thought it was gone by the time I went out in the yard last night. Instead, it was just lurking, ready to come back in force after I came inside for the night. Now it seems worse this morning. I’m actually thinking of making a sling from a scarf. I also might have to cancel my date with the Phantom tomorrow. I volunteer at the Hippodrome and hate to miss working a show of the “Phantom of the Opera”, especially since this is the supposed farewell tour.

Well, on with the writing news. This morning I posted on ways that gardeners could spread the word during National Gardening Month. Unlike the other articles I wrote this week, I kind of like this one. I used a photo of last year’s display at Sherwood Gardens, and the photo above is from the same flowerbed. I’ve been picnicking at Sherwood a lot over the last couple of weeks and I think last year’s display was defiantly better.

I also wrote a short piece on gravestone lilies for my Curious Urbanite blog. I’m not particularly obsessed with death at the moment, but when I visited Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond a couple of weeks ago I was intrigued by all of the graveyard symbols that involved nature. I would have liked more time there as the array of stone flowers, tree stumps and other garden related cemetery art was fascinating.

Photo Woes and Earth Day

This photo is a “leftover” from my article this morning. It took me an inordinately long time to select a photo today. I liked these dogwoods because the colors and shapes are reminiscent of Earth Day themes, (round, green white, ect.) and I have the one I prefer with the article. But, with the weird way that Examiner crops their photos on the Home and Living page I wondered if it would end up showing the blank spot near the middle of that one. (Sometimes the crop makes the subject of the photo completely unrecognizable.) So, I plowed through my backlog of photos to see what to use and then ended up using my original choice anyway. It seems to look all right.

I wanted to make a good impression for Earth Day because I slaved away on a series for Baltimore Green Week but so far it has only average readership. Plus, I’ve had such a busy week and didn’t like the photos I chose for the other articles. They were just things I had, but didn’t quite fit. I’ve been too busy to go on photo expeditions and now I seem to be paying for it. Note that yesterday’s Wordless Wednesday was a random April flowers post full of more leftover pictures. Actually, I might use the azaleas from that post for tomorrow’s article.

Another thing that I did this week was post an Examiner article every day. Again, only average readership so I’ll go back to my regular schedule next week. This only really works if I have gardening news that is hot for a day or so. Plus, Examiner told the Home and Living Writers to spotlight National Gardening Month over the next few days so suddenly everybody is writing about gardening. It is also National Park Week and National Volunteer Week. Why don’t people write about that?

Oh, yes, I’m going to stop my complaining to wish everyone a happy Earth Day!

My Baltimore Green Week series

Tree Baltimore aids city residents during Baltimore Green Week
Volunteer opportunities for Maryland Gardeners
Rethinking your garden habits
Earth Day facts for Marylanders

Wordless Wednesday - April Flowers