Posted by Rochelle Joseph in Houston Zoo, Recycling, volunteer
Though I was one of the first in line to buy the Iphone, I’ve never downloaded or used what’s become commonly known as an App — a fun or useful thing that your phone/Ipod can do for you.
But when the Houston Zoo said they were offering an App, I decided it was time. And it was easy — I simply pressed the app store button on my device and typed in “Houston Zoo”. The App appeared and I hit the download button. Voila! Within seconds, without having spent a dime, there in the palm of my hand was all the information I needed regarding the zoo – as a visiting member, and as a volunteer whose job it is to answer questions from our guests and help their visit be an easy and memorable one.
I’m here to encourage you to try it yourself if you haven’t already. You don’t even need to be at the zoo. Just pull out your Iphone or your Ipod Touch and follow the steps I did and check it out. It’s as helpful for planning your visit before you come to the zoo as it is when you’re on grounds.
As a docent these are a few of the questions I get asked all the time: When is the next Keeper Chat? Where is the carousel from here? Are there recycling bins on grounds? Where are the rest rooms, the food courts, the ice cream places? How far is it to the gift shop? Is there a back exit, even though we came in the front? What’s this tiger/elephant/stork/warthog’s name? While the Zoo will always have plenty of people like me walking around to help our guests, all of these questions and more can be answered in a pinch by the App. And I learned yesterday that the zoo is about to add several new videos, pictures and features — and, they will continue to update and improve it to better serve you.
So I’m, curious — for those of you who’ve used the Houston Zoo App, will you leave me a comment telling me what you’ve liked best about it or tell me of a situation where the App was helpful to you?
If you have something other than an iphone or ipod touch: We’re looking to expand into other smart phone applications –like Driods and Blackberries –and would love to know how many of you would like to have something designed for those phones. Just let us know in the comments. Thanks!
Written by Rochelle Joseph. Please visit Rochelle’s own blog, Adventures in Nature, at http://naturegirrrl.blogspot.com/
Posted by Michael Reina in Giveaway, Houston Zoo, Valentine's Day
You know you love the Zoo – now show us why!
Show us why you love the Houston Zoo & be entered to win a free pair of tickets to one of our Valentine’s Weekend events at the Houston Zoo.
Here’s the idea: In 3 words, show us why you love the Houston Zoo. Snap a photo of it, and upload it to us on the Houston Zoo’s Facebook page, tweet it to us at twitter.com/houstonzoo, or even e-mail it to interactivemarketing@houstonzoo.org.
We’ll announce the 3 big winners on February 9 to win a pair of tickets to our Wild for Love lecture, our Valentine’s Day Brunch, or our Princess Party.
It’s as easy as that. Just 3 words.
Here are a few examples to get your creative juices flowing:
Meet The Keeper
Living The Dream... errr I mean Exploring The Unknown
Lounging Lace Monitor
Touch and Feel
Have fun!
*Note – You can take your photos at home, the Zoo, or anywhere – as long as it shows your 3 words of Houston Zoo love.
Posted by Michael Reina in Featured, Horticulture, Houston Zoo
A Message from Joe Williams, the Houston Zoo’s Horticulture Manager
I’ve had a number of guests and staff asking me about their plants both here and at home after the cold weather of late and what to do with freeze damage. The best thing to do with almost everything at this moment is to leave it alone.
- Don’t trim any woody stemmed plant or perennial until we are certain to not freeze again. The dead and/or unhappy plant matter will help to insulate the rest of the plant if we do freeze again. More importantly, if you cut back to green wood you could promote new growth. This is a huge expense of energy for a plant that is already hurting. Also the new growth is the most sensitive to the cold. The culmination of the energy output and continued damage almost certainly ensures this plant will die.
- Plants such as bananas, gingers, cannas and elephant ears can be trimmed back to the ground and mulched. For these you can trim to just below the damaged portion and they should be content. If there is still green, happy tissue the roots will still be getting energy from the stem which will promote a stronger plant next year. For the most part we are trimming the gingers and bananas just below the damage because we tend to use them as structural components of the gardens and they’ll be walked upon if we are to trim them to the ground. This won’t be a good year to get fruit from our bananas or flowers from our gingers, but the plants will come back. The majority of plants listed above are at least root hardy to anywhere from 10 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit.
- When considering tropical trees, if they are kicking off old leaves, this tends to be a good thing. This means that the tree is still trying to live, normally some sign of bud growth or the trees attempt to eliminate the energy necessary to maintain the leaves and concentrate of root growth. When a tree hold on to dead leaves if tends to be a bad sign. A quick means of checking the potential viability of you trees that do have dead leaves is to attempt to strip a leaf, it should come of fairly easily. This is also works to see if a newly transplant tree is doing alright.
- Now on to palm trees… Most palms that are sold here are supposed to be hardy to at least 20 degrees. This doesn’t mean that nurseries haven’t brought in other more tender palms or that we don’t have a handful of really tropical palms here. Don’t cut any of the ugly dead fronds off until we are certain not to freeze. The most important thing is keep the heart of the palm warm and insulated. This is the area where the leaves emerge from the trunk. The dead leaves give the palm a couple more degrees of cold tolerance. We’ll also wrap or provide heat to palms that we know are sensitive tot the cold. I can provide a list of the palms that are sensitive for any future freezes.
We aren’t going to know for certain the extent of the damage until spring. The good thing about being in Houston is that spring tends to begin in February. As I said before the best thing to do with most plants is just leave them alone. I know it’s tough to look at ugly plants, but for most plants either winter defoliation or being knocked back by freeze is the norm and they’ll come back as strong as ever.