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quail botanical gardens: Bamboo forests, right here in San Diego - 05/25/09 05:44 PM
There are only four zoos in the United States that have Giant Pandas, with all of them on loan from China: San Diego Zoo, National Zoo in Washington, D.C., Memphis Zoo, and Zoo Atlanta.  Although the Giant Panda is classified as a carnivore, its diet is almost exclusively bamboo, to the tune of eating 20-30 pounds of bamboo per day. While bamboo will grow in San Diego, most people consider it a fairly ugly plant with little urban landscape value, so it's not like the Zoo can harvest a lot of bamboo for its pandas.
So where does all the bamboo … (14 comments)

quail botanical gardens: Quail Botanical Gardens: Topiary music & dance festival - 05/21/09 10:36 AM
 
I've always enjoyed topiary, which is the practice of forcing plants to grow into specific shapes, usually people or animals.
I had the privilege of going to Quail Botanical Gardens recent, where I found the topiary garden with its topiary musicians and dancers:
    
    


… (12 comments)

quail botanical gardens: Quail Botanical Gardens: Chinese flame tree - 05/17/09 11:44 PM
I had the privilege of going to Quail Botanical Gardens last week, and anyone who knows me should know that putting me in a botanical garden is like putting Zoey the Cool Cat on catnip.
Probably a great supermajority of plants and animals are not named for anything other than what the person who discovered them wanted to name them. Sometimes they do look like what their name is, such as an anteater, for example.
When we arrived at Quail Botanical Gardens, one of the first things that is visible is a large Chinese flame tree. The picture should adequately explain … (18 comments)

quail botanical gardens: Quail Botanical Gardens: Australian bottle tree - 05/17/09 11:34 PM
I had the privilege of going to Quail Botanical Gardens last week, and anyone who knows me should know that putting me in a botanical garden is like putting Zoey the Cool Cat on catnip.
In just three hours, I was able to take 583 pictures. A few of the pictures are available here (monarch butterfly), here (daisy tree), and here (camouflaged lizard).
One of the tree species at the gardens is one that I knew about but had never seen a mature one. It is the Australian bottle tree, and you can see why it's called that:


There … (19 comments)

quail botanical gardens: SST (Speechless Sunday with Text): Daisy tree (really!) - 05/17/09 11:23 AM
I've always liked daisies, especially the common ones with white petals and a yellow center. They just look so cheerful.
Recently I helped my favorite home inspector with a home inspection on a large home up in North County. I used to work as a home inspector for him from October 2001 to August 2005, so occasionally I'll still help with the larger homes so that they don't take all day.
We spent three hours at Quail Botanical Gardens and Mr. Home Inspector took something like 575 pictures. On the grounds were two daisy trees. As you can see, they are … (11 comments)