Friday, October 01, 2010

Friday Afternoon Garden Club10.01.2010

lichens growing on a walnut tree in northeastern Nebraska

It’s FAC time in The Art Garden!  Grab your favorite beverage and pull up a chair.  You didn’t really want to work this afternoon anyway, did you?  Leave a comment to join the garden party.
Today’s topic:
Do you like lichen? Lichens are organisms that tend to be overlooked, but they can add beautiful color and texture to the landscape.  This site offers a great introduction to the world of lichens. In my garden I have a few boulders with small amounts of flat, silvery-gray lichen, but nothing as showy as the growths above.  Do you have lichens in your garden? What surfaces are they growing on? What do they look like?

4 comments:

Garden Chick said...

I love lichen's color and texture. Maybe strange to some but when I am hiking, in the woods, anyplace outside, I am attracted immediately to lichen. As often as a wildflower or animal will catch my eye, lichen does as often.

Jocelyn H. Chilvers said...

Me too! I like finding it on unusual surfaces; there's an ugly old concrete retaining wall in my neighborhood that has beautiful, multi-colored lichens on it. Win!

ScottHokunson said...

Love the idea of your Friday Afternoon Garden Club! Unfortunately, I am usually catching up with it on Saturday morning.

Lichens are amazing, both texturally and in color. I treasure stone or plants covered with lichen to use in the landscape. Here in New England it is a great way to establish "genius loci".

I with you Jocelyn, lichens - yes!

Jocelyn H. Chilvers said...

Scott, glad you stopped by---come early or come late, anytime is good!
Mosses are few and far between here, so lichens are the organisms that add that something extra---like a patina---to our landscapes.