Musings on Spring
Spring is the perfect time to start observing and recording the timing of seasonal change events in your backyard or neighborhood. At Santa Fe Botanical Garden, we partner with the Rio Grande Phenology Trail to track the timing of seasonal changes in a number of plant species. Volunteers keep weekly data and share with the RG phenology network, and the larger National Phenology Network. What signs of seasonal change are you seeing this week – flower buds? buds bursting? new leaves? leaves increasing in size? eggs? larvae?
Muse No. 7 May 13, 2020
New leaves increasing in size.
Spring is in full force! Help us celebrate the citizen science volunteers who monitor phenology with SFBG. Monitoring seasonal change is the prefect way to fuse your garden observation practice with data collection. What to do: find signs of seasonal change in your garden. Make a notation of the location, date, and the conditions of the day. Take photos of 3 spring phenophases (observable stages in the lifecycle of your plant). Do you see breaking leaf buds, leaves increasing in size, flower buds, open flowers?
Learn more about phenology monitoring on our citizen science webpage.
The Garden Musings Project is an open invitation to look more closely and broadly at our backyards, front yards and neighborhoods. Each week we’ll send three prompts focused around a theme – color, texture, lines, interaction to name a few. These prompts will include ideas to guide a musing or conversation between you and your nearby outdoor spaces. Try each of the exercises, or stick with one that evolves into a regular practice.
Every few weeks, we’ll have a live-stream conversation (via Zoom) to share our experiences, and to chat with artists, educators, writers, poets and gardeners from New Mexico and a far about their own practices observing and interacting with their gardens, landscapes and other natures around them.
Ways to Join: Participate at any level in the project is welcome. Try the weekly musings as they come up in your social media feeds. Sign-up for the project emails below to receive the weekly musings in your inbox, as well as the information for the group gatherings via Zoom through the registration list.
