Our plan was to go to Greenfield Park and Gardens. It was reportedly designed by the same folks who designed Central Park in NYC. It was also reportedly to be a very large lake in a beautiful setting surrounded by trees and other shrubbery. It was all of that.
However, the primary walking path was along the road which meant that the trees and dense shrubbery blocked your view of the lake with exception of a few areas where bridges appeared to cross it. So, we nixed that plan and went with plan B - a much smaller park which didn't appear on the surface that it would present much.
We were wrong. Haly-Burton Park was a wonderful park with walking trails both paved and dirt. The dirt paths went through a Longleaf Pine forest in a restoration area that used to be traveled by OHV's.
Yea, Wilmington, for doing this!
There were several parts to this park. A neat garden type area where trees and flowers were blooming.
The wooded area
where some exceptionally large pine cones could be found
as well as ferns
and other blooming things.
There was a small butterfly / hummingbird garden which also appealed to the Carolina Wren
and the Carolina Chickadee.
An overlook onto the wetlands area was quite peaceful.
In a couple of small planters out front of the main building we found two plants we hadn't seen in person before.
Pitcher Plant
Venus Fly Trap
We had seen a documentary about this plant and how it works. Nature is a really neat thing!
You would think that the long 'fingers' on the edges were the trip wires for this device but it is really the hairs on the inside.
Two of them, touched within a short span of time will result in a closure and hopefully a capture. We circled a few in the above photo to give you and idea.
To appease our curiosity, we tested what we had learned in that documentary and captured it on video. Note: No plants or sticks were harmed in the filming of this clip.