A Summer Walk Through Tilden Botanic Garden

What to do for George's birthday? We hadn't taken a walk through the Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park for a while, so we headed up there after birthday brunch. The Garden is amazing, ten acres of native plants, including many rare and endangered. Check out the photographs I've attached. We were welcomed by two red-tailed hawks, circling high above. One dipped a bit lower, riding the warm air. A dragonfly zipped by and then settled on a branch for a moment.

There have been some additions and changes to the Garden since we last visited. Or maybe we never noticed the stand of Darlingtonia californica, or California Pitcher Plant, a carnivorous plant.

The California Pipevine, or Dutchman's Pipe (Aristolochia californica) is resplendent in several places through the Garden. And although we didn't see any mature Pipevine Swallowtail butterflies, we saw several caterpillars. My attached photo shows one that had just shed its skin. 

And on to an amazing display of Humboldt's Lily. There were several towering up to about 6 feet high, just covered with flowers. The honeybees and bumblebees were out in full force. A honeybee, with a pollen pack on its leg, was busily feeding from a flower on a flannelbush shrub.

I couldn't believe how many bees were on the many flowers of a Matilija Poppy plant. One flower had at least ten bees coming and going for the half hour we sat and watched, amazed. A wonderful birthday walk in the Garden!

Have you been to the Tilden Botanic Garden? What's your favorite plant or animal there?

To see the original post on my blog, click here. And to see more of my nature photographs, check out my website.