Arboretum Detour

Hey! Happy July! Can you believe it, already?
On the hottest day last week (over 100F), I was happy to go down to Santa Cruz for some kid related taxi service, where it is almost always much much cooler. I had a few hours all to myself so instead of going home to a hot house, I detoured up to UCSC (University of California, Santa Cruz) to visit the arboretum.

It was absolutely perfect up there. Very warm, but not too hot, a nice breeze, and only a few people walking around the arboretum pathways.

I was bummed to not have my camera, so these are all from my camera phone. Not too bad, but I would have loved some super closeups of all these unusual plants from around the world. But, I can of course, always go back can't I?

It is a pretty informal arboretum, the pathways are meandering, as opposed to straight/angular, and not terribly well-marked in some places, but it suits Santa Cruz very well. Plus it is huge, lots of room to spread out.
I don't recall visiting the Arboretum when I was a student here (for 2 years), I wonder what I would have thought of it back then?
I was trying to get a picture of the clouds in the sky that were reflected in the water. It was really beautiful. There are a lot of birds that hang out in the arboretum, so I'm sure they use this water feature frequently.

I loved this little statue tucked away under some big trees. It was very unusual, but somehow familiar.

Look at how those flowers glow, as if they've captured the sun itself. Some kind of lily perhaps? It was in the South African garden section I think.

This is Leucospermum cordifolium in case you're wondering, another protea.

This protea looks so much like an artichoke, doesn't it? I would love to do a screenprint of this flower. It would look great in all kinds of color combinations.

These reminded me of doll dresses. They would also make excellent, though tickly, earrings.

I really loved seeing so many orange flowers at once. Orange is a color that I find myself drawn to a lot these days.

This tree had a lot of character. She was very very smooth and cool, with a soft hardness that reminded me of a really muscular human leg.

I was watching this quail family for quite a while, then they decided I was a threat and scoobled off into the underbrush. They have such great camoflauge, can you even see them here?

Other animals I saw were tons of hummingbirds, many many lizards stretched out in the sun, and then really fun was a little bunch of rabbits. One of whom was doing something really strange, wish I'd taken a video of it. He kept running up to this flat stepping stone that was in the sun. Flopping on his belly, stretching out fully and then rolling from side to side, almost onto his back.. Then he'd sit up, look around, dart off into the bushes and dart back out on the stone, repeating the process. I was cracking up! There were several other bunnies watching him, probably wondering what the heck he was doing, just like I was. Animal comedians, gotta love it.

Wandering Wednesday - Arboretum Again

One of our semi-monthly "hikes" with my sister-in-law's family happened last weekend. It was a lovely, cool and mostly foggy day to meet up at the UCSC Arboretum. I love coming here with people who haven't been before, it's so fun to hear the reaction to the weird and wonderful plant collections that they have growing. I've been coming to the arboretum for a long time, and have made a couple posts about it. It's fun to look back and see which pictures I've posted, and what I've said over the years about this wonderful place.
  

The above is a protea from the South African collection. Looks like feathers, doesn't it?
 

This was so soft to the touch, even though hit totally looks like a spider. I love those leaf shapes.

This is a Banksia from the Australian collection. As you can see the bees were pretty excited about the pollen situation.

They are tremendously weird looking!

This nearly neon orange cut through the gloom of the day. I like how the color is also in the stem and leaves too.

Those leaves remind me of Tule Reeds! And the flower/fruit is right on the branch.

This is what the Banksia flower looks like after it's done being all pretty. From far away it looks like a fluffed-up owl sitting on a branch.

The open seed pods look like little mouths don't they? I think there should definitely be an Australian kid's show with these talking.

Every time I see the Australian collection, it makes me really want to go visit Australia and see these out in the wild.

The edge of the arboretum is surround by a redwood "forest". I'm guessing that it's 3rd or 4th growth as it is clearly planted all in neat rows. So, not a forest, but more of a wind break. But still, it's fun to see a bit of home right next to all the strange Australian plants.

We had fun in the faux forest.

I like this color combination.

This is a plant called a wattle, which makes me think of "wattle and daub" which is not this.

One last neon glowing banksia "fruiting cone".

The arboretum is definitely not a place to run around and crash into plants.

I like the demonstration grow domes they still have, they've been here since the 70's and updated over the years. It has fans in the top to take the hot air out. They are part of a program to figure out how to grow our plants even when the climate conditions change drastically. Glad someone is working on figuring out that issue.

Arboretum Visit

 Way back on Mother's Day I made a journey with my parents out to the UCSC Arboretum to see what was blooming.  They have a great variety of small gardens and plant collections. The succulent/cactus garden had so many eye-catching shapes.  Seeing this picture again reminds me that I want to make a stamp out of this image, there's something about the star, almost spiral shape that gets me.

 This fan shape really made me think of an appliqué pattern.

 The Arboretum has an enormous collection of plants from Australia and New Zealand they are so different than the plants we're used to seeing. So many different structures and forms, it's kind of boggling. I took a lot of detail pictures.

The South African collection has so many varieties of proteas, and I can never choose my favorite.

 I think our favorite plant of the day was this one, a turquoise puya, which had us super curious from very far away down the path. The color looked almost artificial, the glowing turquoise had a painted or dyed coloring to it. But closer up it got even better.

 Here's my mom next to it for size comparison. I think she liked matching the plant with her clothing colors. Yes that's a sweatshirt jacket I made for her a long time ago.

Here's the close-up so you can see the color a bit better. And yes it's on my to-buy list at Annie's.

Ready For November

November time, which means it's a birthday month around here, daughter, niece, sister-in-law, father, and DH all have birthdays happening. Oh and T-Day of course. 

The usual monthly marker picture this time is a combination of two pictures in the app SnapSeed:

First picture is the completed quilt for the Ruby+Bee challenge, Come On Through.

And the second is a photo of a protea I took at the UCSC Arboretum.

This video is 31 seconds of my October, using the app 1SE, One Second Everyday.

And finally, the Monthly I-Did List for October

I completed the Ruby+Bee challenge quilt, photographed and entered it in the challenge.🤞🤞🤞

I made the backing and binding for the Orange Bullseye

I finished hand-stitching the two SJSA blocks for the BAM project.

I kept making more blocks for the Pantone Project 

I finished the four green living room pillows.

I watercolored and hand-wrote and sent 50 postcards to voters.

I mastered a new-to-me tool for joining binding ends.

I kept going on the Secret Lives of Color quilt-a-long (but still haven't posted it here yet). I guess it's an actual secret or something! Maybe I'll reveal it at midnight on New Year's Eve...

I occasionally added to my Visual Journal aka Ephemera Journal.

I blogged here 26/31 days and Instagrammed 6 times. Including celebrating the 18th birthday of this very blog.

I attended an in-person quilt show, PIQF for the first time in 3 years, as well as a virtual quilting event, MQG Sessions, and a virtual meeting and lecture with BAM as well.

Not bad at all for an October full of worry about the upcoming election.