Monday, July 28, 2014

Growing an Ozone Garden--School Garden

Growing an ozone sensitive garden for a school science program would be an amazing way to incorporate visual results to a real world problem.

The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center has created an ozone monitoring garden that a school program could replicate with plants suitable to their gardening zone.
"The ozone monitoring garden is full of plants that scientists have found to be ozone-sensitive. When exposed to high levels of ozone, each of these plants shows damage on their leaves. Older leaves have the most damage. Plants with ozone damage have very fine colored spots on the upper surfaces of their leaves, and some leaves also turn yellow. Ozone sensitive plants growing in the garden include cutleaf coneflower, cardinal flower, flowering dogwood, and black-eyed susan. All of these species are fairly common and easy to grow, so can serve well for educational gardens.
Students, teachers, and public visitors to NASA Goddard Space Flight Center can learn and teach about atmospheric chemistry and public health with the garden, and can learn about setting up their own ozone monitoring programs."

Here is the link to their site: http://aura.gsfc.nasa.gov/outreach/ozonegarden.html

The National Park Service has a list of plants that are sensitive to ozone.  According to the site species considered sensitive are those that typically exhibit foliar injury at or near ambient ozone concentrations in fumigation chambers and/or are species for which ozone foliar injury symptoms in the field have been documented by more than one observer.
Bioindicator species for ozone injury meet all or most of the following criteria:
  • species exhibit foliar symptoms in the field at ambient ozone concentrations that can be easily recognized as ozone injury by subject matter experts
  • species ozone sensitivity has been confirmed at realistic ozone concentrations in exposure chambers
  • species are widely distributed regionally
  • species are easily identified in the field
http://www2.nature.nps.gov/air/Pubs/bioindicators/index.cfm

Saturday, July 19, 2014

Bees!


An emerging female mason bee. Female mason bees are black and larger than the males. The males also have a cute, yellow mustache. Mason bees are reported to be better pollinators than the honey bee.

Hunt's Bumble Bee  Bombus huntii

What's Blooming Late July

               Guara    Gaura lindheimeri





Hidcote Lavender  Lavandula angustifolia 'Hidcote'  


   

 Mexican Wine Cups    Callirhoe involucrata
 


   Liatris spicata 'Kobold' 


 Ornamental Fountain Grass  Pennisetum orietale



Thursday, June 26, 2014

Uinta Basin Hookless Cactus

One tiny cute cactus flowering today (only?). The threatened Uinta Basin hookless cactus (Sclerocactus wetlandicus), salvaged from a natural gas pipeline project in the Uinta Basin in 2011.

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

What's Blooming

                   Rose Flower Girl
                       Clematis
                               Aster
                        Sego lily

Monday, June 16, 2014

Succulents



          Euphorbia lactea "White Ghost" crest

Friday, June 6, 2014

What's Blooming




Genista monspessulana--French broom
Jupiters beard--Centranthus ruber
       
Baptisia 'Twilite Prarie Blues'
               Dracunculus vulgaris
Tulip tree --Liriodendron tulipifera