Another Taste of Spring

It was nice to see green grass again this past week. It came in so many different shades I felt filled with green, which is not at all unpleasant in the early spring. It had still been warmish for the past week so I thought I’d see what other signs and wonders I could find. I also immediately ordered some color correcting glasses for colorblindness.

I saw some beautiful lilac buds but I wasn’t happy to see their bud scales opening. It’s far too early and they’re liable to pay a heavy price if they open now. We needed some cold weather to stop plants from thinking spring had come and luckily, by mid-week we got it.

Willows of course can stand the cold and often open in early spring. These catkins were in the process of breaking through their bud scales when I found them. Each furry catkin is protected by a single black or brown bud scale, which is called a cap.

The catkins grow and expand inside the bud scale until there is no room left and then the scale splits open to release it. Soon the yellow willow flowers will appear, growing up out of each fuzzy catkin. It’s one of my favorite spring things to see.

While I was visiting the willows I looked at a few pinecone galls. This one was about the size of an acorn and very hairy. Willow pine cone galls appear on the very tips of willow branches, because that’s where a midge called (Rabdophaga strobiloides) lays its egg. Once the eggs hatch the larvae burrow into the branch tip and the plant reacts by forming a gall around them.

I went to where I know a lot of sumacs grow, thinking I’d see a flock of robins eating the seeds, but I didn’t see a single robin and I didn’t see any sign of them or any other bird having eaten the seeds. I’ve heard that sumac berries aren’t the first choice of birds because they’re low in fat, and fat translates to energy. I don’t know how true it is though. I’ve heard in other places sumac fruit gets eaten all winter. Maybe it depends on how cold it gets. It can get mighty cold here so maybe the birds need something more substantial to keep them warm.

The spiraling leaves on this plant reminded me of the spiraled horns of the giant eland from Africa that I had just seen on television recently. The spirals in their horns help them lock together when fighting over a mate, but I don’t why these leaves twisted like they did. They made me stop and look and wonder, and that was enough.

As I neared these honey locust seedpods from over on the right they looked like a big snake in the grass, and I thought of how my grandmother would have climbed the nearest tree if she had been with me. I smiled as I thought how I would have taken her by her trembling hand and walked her over to where I was when I took this photo. “See,” I might have said, “it’s not a snake at all.” Just a simple change of perspective and she would have seen through the illusion, but there must have been a time when it wasn’t an illusion to make her so afraid. She never told me the story but she did tell me to keep away from snakes. I think it must have seemed perfectly natural to her that I would inherit all her fears but I never did, so I enjoy seeing snakes.

I used to think a scene like this one meant that the sun had warmed the stone enough to make it melt into the frozen earth but by watching closely over the years I saw that what really happens is, the saturated soil freezes and heaves up around the stone, which doesn’t move. The hole always has the very same shape as the stone. This is a sure sign that the ground is thawing.

I went to the campus of the local college to look at their flowers beds and was surprised to see a lot of green shoots, like those of crocus seen here. The seedpods you see in some of these photos are from native redbud trees.

I was even more surprised to see crocus flowers. These are the earliest I’ve ever seen.

Tulips were also up but thankfully I didn’t see any buds yet. There are some beautiful red, yellow and purple tulips in this bed. I also saw daffodils up but no buds on them yet either. The coarse mulch used at the college is I think from fallen trees chipped up by the electric company. I’d never use it here but it’s most likely free so they use lots of it.

Tradescantia or spiderwort leaves were showing. The leaves always show quite early even though they won’t bloom until late May or early June. I’m looking forward to seeing the one with white flowers that have a slight blueish blush named “Osprey.” I might even have to buy one, because it’s very beautiful.

I didn’t need this stone to remind me to smile when I saw those crocus blossoms.

This magnolia bud looked a little odd but for the most part the ones I looked at were playing it safe and not opening. The flowers on this tree are a beautiful deep purple on the outside of the petals and pure white on the inside. It’s a semi dwarf tree, I think. When the flowers don’t suffer and turn brown from the cold it’s a beautiful thing.

Cornelian cherry buds offered no surprises. They looked just as they always do in early spring, with their two outer bud scales partly opened.

But then I looked a little closer and did get a surprise when I saw yellow flower buds. This is the earliest I’ve ever seen them and I was a little concerned at first, but as I thought about it I realized that I have never seen these small yellow flowers damaged by cold, no matter when they’ve opened. Cornelian cherry is an ornamental flowering shrub related to dogwoods. It blooms in early spring (usually in March) with clusters of blossoms that have small, bright yellow bracts. Apparently they can stand a lot of cold.

I didn’t think I’d see any vernal witch hazel blossoms but these were just opening. When it gets warm enough the yellow, strap like petals unroll themselves out of the bud and if it gets cold again they roll themselves back up, much like a window shade. You can see the fuzziness of the bud scales that protect the tender blossoms in this shot. Some plants use hairs for protection and this is one of them. Magnolia is another.

I was really surprised when I found several witch hazels loaded with open flowers. The day was warm but still, I wasn’t expecting to see so many flowers. It was great to smell them again. They have such a fresh, clean scent which someone once described as like clean laundry, just taken down off the clothesline. These are very tough plants and if the petals roll up in time they can take a lot of cold, but I have seen them with petals all brown and hanging when they opened too early in the past. I’m hoping I don’t see that this year.

If you want to send your spirits soaring after a long, cold winter, just plant a few spring blooming witch hazels. I certainly had a spring in my step after spending some time with them. Each year I’m sorry that I don’t have a few in my own yard.

So hooray, it was spring. But then it wasn’t. This is what we woke to last Thursday morning; about 3-4 inches of snow with sleet on top of that and then freezing rain over that. In fact, we were still getting freezing rain when I took this shot of Mount Caesar in Swanzey with my cellphone, and that’s probably why it looks more like a painting than a photo. There was probably water on the lens.

You might think, after a two-week taste of spring, that waking up to snow and cold would be depressing but it’s a good thing, because it will slow most plants down and keep their flowers from opening too soon. This coming week the forecast is for temps in the mid-30s, and that means the snow will melt slowly, as it should. The witch hazels will be fine I think, but the crocuses that have bloomed will be finished and the others will just sit and wait. I still haven’t seen a sap bucket hanging on a maple tree but I do know that the sap is running. I’ve even heard that one person was boiling already. I hope you’re staying warm and dry wherever you happen to be.

People don’t notice whether it’s winter or summer when they’re happy. ~Anton Chekhov

Thanks for coming by.