WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 27: The Wisner House will be closed for a private event.

Blog

Arboretum Afternoons/Snowflake Bentley

This Winter, we’ll be embracing the chilly weather by learning about the amazing adaptations of Arctic animals, the (sadly diminishing) grandness of glaciers – and about those fascinating and fleeting phenomena of the season – snowflakes.  I can be conflicted about the winter cold, but never about the wonder of noticing small things!

That we know as much as we do about snowflakes/snow crystals – their structure, variation, uniqueness – we owe to a remarkable fellow who was a...

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Pollinators & Nectarines

"The most common way gardeners attempt to connect with insects is by planting for butterflies. It is a noble idea... Sadly, the execution of this enterprise is so often directed by misinformation that we end up having fewer butterflies than we started with."
-Doug Tallamy, Bringing Nature Home

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The Little Things

Sometimes when I go for a walk around the grounds I sometimes forget we are in the middle of a pandemic. While Covid-19 has turned our world upside down, the natural world is moving along as if nothing has changed – the flowers are blooming, the bees are pollinating, the fireflies are dancing; nature seems the way it have always been, rather normal. Though in nature, nothing is ever normal.

Whenever I am talking about adaptations, I always tell my audience, "Everything in nature – ...

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