Bursting!
That’s the name of the game this week at the Garden. Thanks to the brilliant sunshine, hot temperatures and warm winds of this past weekend, the buds are popping out like popcorn kernels. Everywhere I look, I see tiny explosions of color that combine in drifts and clouds like an Impressionist’s million dots of paint.
It’s startling to realize what dramatic changes are happening overnight. Each day we make the rounds to monitor selected plants for our participation in Project Budburst. Leaves or flowers that were tightly closed up yesterday are suddenly expanded to 5 times their former size.
Project Budburst is a nationwide citizen science program that tracks the annual growth phases of a variety of plants. Stages like “first leaf," “first flower,l" and “first fall color” are recorded and monitored by thousands of people around the country, to assist in the program’s climate studies. Anyone can join in by registering themselves and their chosen species of plants at Project Budburst’s website, which also provides information about plant identification and the the scope of the project. And please visit the Garden to experience ‘bursting’ firsthand. All of the Project Budburst plants are specially labelled, and information about the project can be accessed at the computer workstations in the Eleanor Squires Library.
Today’s observations at the Garden:
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