Floracliff



“When the flower blooms, the bees come uninvited.”

Today we joined the director of Floracliff Nature Sanctuary for a wildflower walk along the Elk Lick Creek valley, near Lexington. Dr. Mary Wharton was very passionate about the uniqueness of this area and worked hard to educate others about why it should not be over developed. Her advocacy for the land was exhibited by her battles over the damming of the Red River and the original proposal of the widening of Paris Pike that would have destroyed a quintessential Bluegrass landscape. With her help, both proposals were successfully defeated.

“If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.”

In the late 1950s, Mary Wharton began purchasing property along the Kentucky River that she would later name Floracliff. Her dream for the property was to preserve the natural communities and special geological features unique to the area. Dr. Wharton believed that education and appreciation lead to preservation. She recognized the potential for Floracliff to become a center for environmental education and research in the natural history of the Inner Bluegrass and Kentucky River watershed. The Floracliff staff  continue to guide Floracliff by her dreams and beliefs.

"Just living is not enough... One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.”

Flowers and fruits are always fit presents; flowers, because they are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all of the utilities of the world. These gay natures contrast with the somewhat stern countenance of ordinary nature: they are like music heard out of a work-house.

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Theodore Roosevelt

When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it,
it’s your world for the moment… Georgia O’Keeffe

People from a planet without flowers would think we must be
mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.
Iris Murdoch

Flowers are the music of the ground
From earth's lips spoken without sound.
EDWIN CURRAN, "Flowers"