Sunday, May 20, 2007

Continuing our weekend of beauty, Emma and I went to a wildflower preserve for their annual tour today. The preserve is GROWISER (Grande Ronde Overlook Wildflower Institute Serving Ecological Restoration), located about 15 miles north of La Grande, on the flanks of the Blue Mountains. It's a 182-acre native plant sanctuary that has been reclaimed from pasturage and farm land.

Stunning.



The tour was led by the owner/manager, who has been loving and nurturing this land since the early 1990's. He's a wealth of information. He knows nearly every plant on the property, what they need to grow, and how to get rid of the invasive exotic species. He does use chemical herbicides sometimes, but only when necessary, spot-treating ONLY, and none of the really nasty wide-spectrum persistant kinds.

A lot of the wildflowers in the open meadows were the same as those Emma and I saw yesterday (pictures in my previous post), but there were also lots of different ones, since the preserve has a large wooded area.


western columbine (Aquilegia formosa)


Largeleaf lupine (Lupinus burkei)


Elegant mariposa lily (Calochortus elegans)

And my favorite (of course)- orchids!!!


Mountain lady's slipper (Cypripedium montanum)

I have wanted to see this species since I was a little girl, and I was so thrilled that it was in bloom. Unfortunately, my camera batteries conked out, and I was unable to take the thousands of pictures I wanted to. I'm going back tomorrow.

6 comments:

Valerie said...

Lovely flower photo's. Lady slippers here are yellow....but it's been awhile since I've come across one.
Thanks for sharing.

Leigh said...

What beautiful photos. I really like the flower closeups, but the landscape one is exceptionally lovely.

Jackie said...

Love the lady slippers! We have them around here. In fact I had a friends boyfriend pick me a couple once. I was totally horrified! Even after explaining that picking them is bad and you can kill them and they are endangered, he blew my concerns off and said "I know where there are a bunch of them" Clueless.

PJ said...

awesome-awesome!!!!

Suz said...

Beautiful!

I especially love the lady slipper!

Cathy said...

Lovely! So glad your camera batteries cooperated. And love the small tank for the fries/frys. Makes me want to set up another tank.