Our Evening Primrose Study

This challenge was truly a challenge as we pushed ourselves to find a subject to study in our local area. We could not get our Four O’Clocks or Moonflowers to grow this year in our garden. We are going to try a different spot next year to see if it makes a difference.

In the meantime, we did the reading in the Handbook of Nature Study and went out in our yard in the evenings looking for flowers that attract moths. We didn’t observe much except maybe that the star jasmine has a more intense fragrance at night and it really stands out in the garden because of its white flowers.

We also noticed that the Dusty Millers were sort of glowing in the evenings too with their silvery soft hairs on the stems and leaves.

Sometimes the subject just appears and because you are prepared you can take advantage of the opportunity. This situation happened to us on a recent hike. We were hiking at our favorite spot and came down to the beach at the lake’s edge.

Wow! We couldn’t believe our eyes. We were greeted with a beach covered in wildflowers. The two most predominant flowers were the lupine and what we identified using our field guide….Hooker’s Evening Primrose! Can you believe it? We had never seen this beach covered with these flowers before and we had never seen evening primroses in the wild. The field guide says that these flowers are nocturnal and are fragrant at night.

Here are some photos….courtesy of my oldest son. He has become such a wonderful photographer and being able to share a passion with a child is such a gift.

The beach was a blaze with color, more awesome than even the photo shows.

Isn’t this the most lovely flower? The mix of the purple lupines and the yellow of this flower was stunning. It was a moment to be remembered forever.

This has been another great Outdoor Hour Challenge…thanks to the Handbook of Nature Study and Anna Botsford Comstock’s desire for us to learn about the things we have all around us.