Mt. Cuba, Hockenville, DE  is the legacy of the Lammot du Pont Copelands.

Winterthur, DE of Henry Francis du Pont.

 

 Spring flowers bloomed 2 -3 weeks early in the mid-Atlantic this year.

 

They were gone quickly as though forewarned of the heat to come. 

 

In their place, hot house flowers in pretty vases

in which roses were permitted to hide completely from the unusual heat.

 

Winterthur, DE on June 13, 2024

 

 

Periods of intense heat and not much rain accompanied the passage to summer. 

 

In mid-June, in an area of 60 acres of Mt. Cuba’s carefully tended gardens, I found only 2 native flower species in bloom:  orchid and Indian pink (as in pinking shears).

 

 

Indian Pink (Spigelia marilandica)

 

 

Native varieties of orchids

 

 

In July, in intense heat, a tree fell into the Quarry Garden at Winterthur from the escarpment above.

 

It had shown no signs of failing. Loud cracks were heard one day; and then it crashed into the quarry.

 

Within a few days, a second such ‘sudden tree fail’ occurred in Washington, DC: a young woman walking her dog was killed.

Intense heat contributed to structural problems in the tree or in its anchorage in the soil.

 

 

The sugar maple and the red oak, both Pennsylvania natives, have begun not to thrive.  The state has become too hot for them. 

 

 

 

The magnificent one is migrating northwards. Meadow garden, Mt. Cuba, Hockenville, DE

 

 

Orchards of bananas and kumquats have been planted in the city of Philadelphia. 

Bananas and kumquats. Philadelphia.

 

Native late summer flowers are in bloom now. At Mt. Cuba, these are much fewer than in former years. Some species seem to me not to have flowered at all there this year.  (I may be mistaken). Others produced flower heads much smaller than I have seen in the past.

 

Even the varieties of goldenrod – usually creating a massively showy and varied golden kingdom – are scarcer in the meadow and along its edges. 

 

 

 

 

 

I have been slipping in and out of deep shade to see what can be seen.

Winterthur underneath a pawpaw tree

 

 

 

 

Ice boxes of cold sodas have been left in the gazebo also for visitors by a thoughtful staff.

 

 

 

I repeated to myself  that these are autonomous and self-regulating, living worlds. Always seeking ways to adapt in order to  thrive.

 

No need for me to become disquieted on their behalf.

 

 

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Carolina petunia (Ruellia carolinensis) 

 

 

Lavender- and white-flowering Culver’s Root (Veronicastrum virginicum). The second photo from the website of Mt. Cuba Center.

 

 

 

 Culver’s Root (Veronicastrum virginicum ‘Fascination’)

 

 

Thimbleweed (Anemome virginiana) flower and seed

 

 

 

Scarlet beebalm (Monarda didyma)

 

 

Pickerel weed (Pontedaria cordaria) with scarlet bee balm

 

 

Bunchflower (Melanthium virginicum)

 

 

White baneberry (Actaea pachypoda) 

 

 

 

Woodland spider lily (Hymenocallis occidentalis)

 

 

 

Wine cup or Purple poppy mallow (Callirhoe involucrata)

 

 

 

Turk’s Cap Lily (Lilium superbum)

 

 

 

 

The flower and flower base of a variety of native, carnivorous Pitcher plant (Saracenia)

 

 

 

Cardinal flower (Lobelia Cardinalis)

 

 

 

Spike Gayfeather (Liatris spicata)

 

 

 

 

2 varieties of coneflowers (Echinacea), almost solitary where they were growing in the meadow garden

 

 

Brown-eyed susan (Rudbeckia triloba)

 

 

 

Stokes Astor (Stokesia laevis)

 

 

A variety of Clustered mountain mint (Pycnanthemum muticum)

 

 

 

Moonbeam whorled tickseed (Coreopsis verticilliata)

 

 

 

Giant coneflower (Rudbeckia maxima) with Spike gayfeather

 

 

Fruit of a Chartreuse staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina)

 

 

 

A species of milkweed in the meadow garden

 

 

 

Two varieties of native hibiscus