Brookside Gardens

     I had only a short but enjoyable visit to the Brookside Gardens in Maryland. Among the specimen plantings near the Conservatory was a Spiderleaf Japanese Maple, Acer Palmatum Dissectum. A most impressive full grown, short tree, sometimes called Threadleaf or Cutleaf, some of but many cultivars. I even found a Bonsai version on the Web.

    The path from the Nature Center parking lot to the Gardens was aptly called the Woodland Walk. Plants included Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Solomon Seal, ferns and even some Skunk Cabbage. The Trillium had long since flowered. Back home each spring we go to a particular steep, serpentine, narrow country road where the slopes are covered with Trillium, both white and red. This year we missed the Adders Tongues or Dogtooth Violets, one of my favorites. After a most unseasonably warm, no hot, real early spring, winter returned. Then spring came back and Trillium bloomed. Before the Adders Tongues flowered, almost two weeks of cold wet rain kept us away. When we returned, the Adders Tongues had already flowered and faded away. This particular location does not have any of our rarer form of Trillium, Painted Trillium. These red streaked white flowers are, however, found even closer to our home, in the adjacent State Park. It does require most careful searching for the few widely scattered plants. Trillium is a protected plant in our New York State. Not everyone knows that and young children have been known to pick their flowers. On one day a friend and his two young daughters were going by my house after a walk in the woods. Both girls had handfuls of Trillium flowers. He was surprised to learn of their protected status and future blooms were then saved.

    The plant that impressed me most in the Conservatory was a humble Hydrangea, a  Blue Lacecap Hydrangea. The contrast between the blue center and the surrounding pure white florets caught my eye. It was the white, white florets of this plant that made it so striking. Most plants of this variety do not have pure white florets.

    The Brookside Gardens, of about fifty acres around the Conservatory, will have to await a further visit by me for exploration. The Maryland weather is much milder than that back home and gardens can be enjoyed longer than up north. We were down there for four days. Temperatures were in the eighties. When we came home there were 2½ inches of rain in the rain gauge. We had some more snow, bracketed by cold, rainy days. This