Bloom day scans: Mugshots and Dragon Day
Lack of time and not much happening in the garden leaves me with just a few sloppy scans I squeezed in this morning. A forced narcissus from inside and an eranthis about to bloom outside — about the only thing outside that I can count as a bloom.
I have to remind myself that it’s only Dragon Day. Actually, Friday was Dragon Day, the last day of classes before spring break at Cornell. Spring break is a euphemism around here. Officially, spring is still a week or so off. And it’s at least a month until we start getting consistently spring-like weather in these parts.
Basically, the annual Dragon Day ritual at Cornell has the first year architecture students crafting a large dragon that they parade across campus. They are met by a phoenix built by the engineering students. Everyone ends up back on the Arts Quad where they burn the dragon. (This video from 2007 shows how crazy and creative this event really is.) Then everyone goes home for a week. Actually, judging from the tans of returning students, many go someplace much sunnier.
We still have the annual Skunk Cabbage Run and Tax Day (which brought us a Nor’easter last year) to punctuate spring before we really get cranked up for gardening season.
View dragons from the last 10 years, and see more coverage of this year’s Dragon Day in the Cornell Chronicle and Ithaca Journal.
Filed under Art, Bloom day scans, Bulbs by on Mar 15th, 2008. Comment. 
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Comments on Bloom day scans: Mugshots and Dragon Day
I like that 2nd from the bottom scan. It really stands out against the black. And what an odd custom. I am glad we didn’t have to do that when I was a freshman ag student at Purdue!
Now, wouldn’t that tradition be even more interesting if the horticulture students would come up with something to rival the dragon and phoenix? Perhaps something that could be then chopped up and composted, if they really wanted to be politically correct. Maybe a giant mantis built with the cut-down stems of warm-season ornamental grasses. (Or not.)
Here’s hoping you get a bit of milder weather so you can get outside and enjoy your garden during the break.
I like the scanned flowers. Dragons. hmmmm they are colorful.
I swear if you lived in my area I’d be hounding you to let me come watch you create these amazing scans. But then I’d want a really good scanner and that’s SO not in my budget, so just as well.
I planted some eranthis last fall and I don’t see a sign of them, even though the snowdrops are up and the crocus are at least showing foliage. Do you think they will bloom late the first year, or are they most likely no-shows?
Susan: The scanner I use was a cast off from a friend four years ago. It’s got a huge scratch in it that I work around. I’d love to have a great scanner. But technology costs shouldn’t get in the way of doing this.
If you scan documents, you can scan flowers. Put some stuff on your flatbed. Set it for color and start around 150 to 300 dpi. It’s like one of those games that takes minutes to learn and a lifetime to master.
Kathy: The ones I got were pass-along plants from a rock gardening friend. She dug them out after they went dormant and I planted them very haphazardly. They are not in good soil. They’ve come back a couple years now. They seem to be spreading some, but not yet taking over. I’d like nothing better than to have a thick patch of them. But that might take a few years. I don’t know enough about them to know if they are are going to come back for you or not. I know at my place there is a lot of variation on the early ephemerals based on where they are planted.
It seems odd that they would burn the dragon rather than the Phoenix.
I like these… particularly the curled-up aconite.
Kathy, if I might chime in… I researched the aconites a bit when I went to plant some this fall. I soaked them and such like you’re supposed to, but I did also read that sometimes they STILL don’t come up the first year… but that you may see them the second.