As winter lingers, boredom builds. Journaling offers a creative outlet. It invites you to pause and ponder about your world. Through reflection, journaling also enlightens you about your life journey and yourself. There are countless journaling formats, but three basic approaches: text only, drawings only or a combination. No method is wrong. It is right if […]
Read MoreMiniatures & Dollhouses The dollhouses have arrived! Now’s the time to visit the Lora Robins Library at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden during Dominion Energy GardenFest of Lights. Currently on display are 45 dollhouses and dioramas on loan from local private collections. These miniatures include a diner, a 6-foot long Victorian house, a bakery (pictured above), a houseboat, […]
Read MoreA hungry mosquito lurks nearby, evidenced by a high-pitched whining sound. If a female, her target is protein from blood, after which she develops eggs numbering up to 250,000 per season. Her pesky bites cause incessant itching, but a greater concern is whether she carries a mosquito-borne disease, such as Zika or West Nile virus. […]
Read MoreThe wonder and beauty of Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden never cease to amaze me each time I visit. But sometimes, I need to remind myself to slow down and take in the smaller details around me. Rushing along the Lotus Bridge or the Main Garden Walk means I’ll miss creatures in the water and new […]
Read MoreCapturing nature in the camera lens takes practice plus knowledge. 5 Photography Tips: Become well acquainted with your camera. Read the manual thoroughly with the camera in hand, and practice features as you learn about them. Nothing is more frustrating than having to stop and figure out how your camera works, especially at a decisive […]
Read MoreLewis Ginter Botanical Garden’s collection of 4,000 herbarium specimens is now registered in the Index Herbariorum, a major international registry of herbarium plant collections. This means that our collection is now among over 3,000 registered herbaria around the world, where over 350 million plant records are cataloged, available for research and a crucial record of […]
Read MoreRecently I met with Executive Chef Anne Maury Haapala who shared her vision for the upcoming cooking demonstration Lightened Up Favorites with Chef Anne which will take place on July 25, 2018. This 90-minute demo is followed by a delectable lunch featuring some of the recipes discussed. MSC: What is your vision or approach to […]
Read MoreBackyard birds often wander widely around our neighborhoods during summer, so it can seem that birdlife has diminished. Consider these tips to increase avian traffic in your backyard. Water: Backyard birds need a source of water, especially during our hot, humid summers. Provide a birdbath and refill it often. A water drip in the birdbath […]
Read MoreTired of bland and boring cocktails? Harvest some herbs for herb-infused cocktails! “Fresh herbs take mixology to a whole new level,” said Ashley Greene, catering manager with Meriwether Godsey, the in-house caterer for Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden. The pungency of herbs infuses unexpected flavors and pleasant aromas. “Mixing craft cocktails involves science and the art […]
Read MoreAlthough they’ve only known each other for two days, 16-year-olds Honoka Sato and Olivia Appelrouth have become fast friends. Sato, a Japanese exchange student from Municipal Urawa High School (Saitama, Japan) and Appelrouth, her host student, and a sophomore at Clover Hill High School, say they have learned much from each other already. Appelrouth explains […]
Read MoreDuring this year’s Winter Symposium and CVNLA short course, we dug deeper into what it means to garden with purpose and passion through perennial gardens. Perennials offer a different gardening experience than annuals because they come back year after year and require less maintenance. The New Perennial Movement focuses on establishing a link with nature through […]
Read MoreQ & A with Botanical Illustrator Lara Call Gastinger Lara Call Gastinger is a botanical artist and illustrator from Charlottesville, VA. Gastinger is the lead illustrator for the Flora of Virginia project. She has over 50,000 followers on Instagram where she posts samples from her own nature journal. Gastinger’s art focuses on the minute details […]
Read MoreMaking a Difference One Garden at Time The day I decided to browse the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden website beyond the home page felt very serendipitous. Inspired by the recent Garden Times newsletter that arrived in my mailbox, I decided to reacquaint myself with the Garden. As I browsed, I stumbled across information on the Urban […]
Read MoreThe Botanical Book club at Lewis Ginter decided it needed a new name, a broader descriptor of our eclectic reading tastes. We are now the Nature Study Reading Society. Looking back at the titles we’ve read since 2001 (PDF), it’s obvious we have wide-ranging tastes covering plants and gardening, botany, birds, hiking, observational powers, history, […]
Read MoreDavid Palma-Carias is like many teenagers. At 19, he loves to listen to music, has a wicked sense of humor, and he’s using his time out of school during the summer to build a foundation for his future. David is thinking about career plans and dreaming big (he wants to be a radio personality). When […]
Read MoreFor the past three summers, Lia Bazemore has worked as an intern in the Children’s Garden at Lewis Ginter through a partnership with Partnership for the Future. Bazemore is a recent graduate Henrico High School in the International Baccalaureate Program. In the fall, she will be a freshman at James Madison University. This summer has been very bittersweet. This is the where everything changes […]
Read MoreChef Anne Maury Haapala on work, motherhood and her upcoming honey cooking demo This week I met with Executive Chef, Anne Maury Haapala who has recently returned to her roll with Meriwether Godsey after the birth of her son Jacks. We discussed her little one, being a working mom and her upcoming cooking demo, the Lunchtime Lecture: […]
Read MoreAt first I felt a little out of place. I was a teenage student in a group of middle-aged women, some of whom were far beyond me in skill drawing flowers. The class, Introduction to Botanical Illustration, was the first I had ever taken at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. […]
Read MoreI never thought I liked beer… Then again, the only beer I had ever tasted was a “light” version out of a can. But my feelings about beer changed when I vacationed with my husband in Austria and he suggested that I try something called a radler. I was a little leery, but when […]
Read MoreIn January a new Children’s Garden educator, Tarneshia Evans, joined our teaching staff. Two months later, Evans was selected as one of five Outstanding Educators by Project Learning Tree® (PLT), the national environmental education program of the American Forest Foundation. It’s easy to see that Evans is a leader when it comes to helping kids get […]
Read MoreSpinning Wheel Demonstration Spinning is an ancient craft dating back thousands of years that can be quite delightful to watch. If you want to add an unconventional — yet no less fun and mesmerizing — activity to your holiday schedule, join us for a spinning demonstration in the Lora Robins Library as part of the Natural Plant Dyes […]
Read MoreMonarch Butterfly Adoptions For about three years now, Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden’s volunteer-led spring and fall plant sales have actively encouraged home gardeners to grow plants that support native butterflies and local pollinator populations. Each year, we feature butterfly habitat kits, each containing host plants (plants that caterpillars need for food) and nectar plants (plants that butterflies need […]
Read MoreLynne Munden Frailing & Botanical Art Grow your art as you grow your garden Botanical art student Lynne Frailing enrolled in the Botanical Illustration Certificate program so that she could draw her own garden. Commuting from her home in Virginia Beach to take classes at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, Frailing, a real-estate agent by profession, […]
Read MoreNative Carnivorous Plants I’ve made a few jokes about how carnivorous plants have so many fans — especially tween boys. They even have paparazzi! So, I wasn’t surprised when a saw a post on our Facebook page from a mom who said her son was crazy about them. “Back in March, we promised Ethan to take him to Lewis […]
Read MoreWe’ve been writing about our experiences in nature for as long as our story-telling tradition can remember. Some stories take place in nature, the plot driven by elements of our natural world. In other stories, nature is the spirit that finds and fills us with a deep understanding, a connection to people we’ve never met […]
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