A Trip to the W.J. Beal Botanical Garden & Fenner Nature Center

Today has been a busy day. I stopped off to visit the Endangered and Threatened Species Garden at MSU to see what's starting to pop. There are three plants with buds that will bloom in the next few weeks: Twin leaf (special concern), Jacob's ladder (threatened), and Prairie trillium (threatened).

Virginia bluebells (endangered) is already in bloom, so as soon as the sun comes out I'll go back with my professional camera to capture their shadows.

I was lucky to once again run into Hope, a botanical technician at the gardens. She has been a huge help in both pointing out where the plants are and in helping me identify and collect Common buckthorn. While she was showing me the Canadian burnet plant, I caught sight of this wonderful creature out of the corner of my eye. Hope said she'd been there for a few weeks now sitting on her nest. We were standing within 5 feet of her and she didn't move a muscle.

Afterwards, I made my way over to Fenner Nature Center in Lansing where Program Manager Katie Woodhams walked me down a trail to point out Garlic mustard, an invasive plant and one of the biggest threats to Michigan's native woodlands. Once we had identified it, I started seeing it everywhere. I pulled plants for about an hour and now have enough to try my hand at making Garlic mustard paper. I'm going to use the whole plant, roots and all. I've been told it will smell a lot better in the pot than the other plants I've worked with.