We’ve had a cool, showery week and that has slowed down a lot of the flowers. Since they were really blooming about two weeks early anyway, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The weathervane at the local college on this day was showing stiff winds out of the east-northeast, which is almost always a chilly direction, so I didn’t spend much time standing around.
NOTE: The arrow on a weathervane always points in the direction that the wind is coming from, which in this case is the west. I took this photo on Wednsday but was apparently thinking of yesterday when I put this post together. In any event it has been cold and windy all week.
Of course I didn’t really need a weather vane; all I had to do was watch the alder catkins. Their normal position at rest is straight up and down, so even sitting in a car I knew it was windy.
Last week I was able to show spring beauties but they’ve left us for now due to the change in weather, I think. This week coltsfoot blossoms have appeared. They’re another early spring flower which is able to stand a lot of cold. They close up at night and when rain threatens. Though they aren’t native they’re a welcome sign of spring.
This shot isn’t great but I wanted to show it because it shows how flat coltsfoot blossoms are as opposed to dandelion blossoms, which are more mounded. At a glance you could walk right by thinking you had seen dandelions, but a closer look would show the differences. Another difference is in the stems; dandelion stems are smooth and coltsfoot stems are very scaly. Once you look closely you see that they don’t look at all alike.
Flower buds are finally showing through the gray of willow catkins but as I write this on Thursday, March 21st, the night’s forecast calls for temps as low as 15-20 degrees F. Willows are used to the cold, but we’ll have to wait and see just how cold it gets. These were female flowers.
I got up the next morning and saw that the thermometer read 19 degrees; not good with so many flowers in bloom, so off I went. I found that the few male willow blossoms that had appeared over the past day or two were undamaged, and I saw many willow catkins that still hadn’t blossomed yet. It’s going to be a great year for willow flowers by the looks.
I could see that some of the female red maple flowers had blackened tips, and in other places the entire stigma was black and withered. There are many millions if not billions of these flowers in just this area though, so the red maple population will be fine, I’m sure. Staggered bloom times mean that by the time the last flowers appear the first ones that appeared have already been pollinated and are producing seeds.
One of my favorite buds to watch in spring are red elderberry. They’re uncommon but worth looking for because they’re very colorful and are big enough to be easily seen. This year I was fortunate to find two or three bushes in different places in different stages of growth, so we can see what bud break looks like in a red elderberry.
Bud break happens when you can just see the tip of a green leaf coming out of a bud in spring. Or in this case, a purple leaf. Many new spring leaves protect themselves from harsh sunlight by having colors other than green to start with. Purple and red are common new spring leaf colors.
This is the first time I’ve been able to show you the entire sequence of red elderberry buds breaking in one post. Normally I’d have to show it over the course of two or three posts. Elderberry buds show a lot of movement, even in still photos. The new leaves look like little hands.
This photo is from a few years ago but I’m including it so you can see the entire bud break sequence. In this shot the flower buds have appeared and the new leaves have started to turn green. When mature the flower heads will be small, bright white, and kind of truncated cone or bee hive shaped; much different than the large, flat flower heads of the much more common American black elderberry which is found throughout the northeastern U.S.
Cornelian cherries have finally blossomed, just in time for the coldest weather since January. The plant itself is hardy down to -30F but I didn’t get a chance to get back to them so we’ll have to wait and see how the tiny flowers did. This is an ancient plant that was well known by the Greeks and Romans. Pits from its tart berries have even been found in archeological digs dating back to Neanderthal times.
The ground ivy flowers have been growing quickly so the large, spotted “landing pad” petal will now support insects. From there an insect might crawl over a small forest of guide hairs which point them down into a tube where they will find nectar. Once they’ve had their fill of nectar they’ll crawl up out of the tube, hopefully avoiding the guide hairs and instead brushing against the 4 chunky white stamens. The stamens will dust them with pollen, which they’ll transport to another flower. Above the blocky white stamens, peeking through a notch in the upper petal, is the forked style. The example show here still had some growing to do; when fully grown it will arch up over the flower, bending almost low enough to touch the guide hairs. When an insect that has been dusted with pollen from another flower brushes against that sticky forked style and leaves its pollen, pollination will be complete and the flower can produce its 4 seeds, which are called nutlets. Ground ivy flowers can be male, female or “perfect,” flowers, which means they have both male and female reproductive parts. In the time it took to type this a dozen flowers probably could probably have been pollinated. It’s a quick, uncomplicated process. Until you try to explain it, that is.
I saw maybe a dozen flowers open on a single Forsythia but the thousands of others in town, on almost every street, aren’t blooming yet. Most aren’t even showing color in their buds yet.
Though I thought I’d be wasting my time I went and checked the striped maple buds. Much to my surprise I found several that were close to opening. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen them open this early. I think for striped maple it usually happens in early to mid-April, so everything seems to have been accelerated by two or three weeks due to the early warmth.
The light colored bud inside the darker bud scales is very easy to see. I’ll have to watch them closely now so I don’t miss the beautiful velvety, pink and orange buds. They’re easily one of the prettiest buds to open in spring and I’ve seen them each spring no matter what the weather has been like. Bud opening is staggered, so if a few are lost to the cold there will be more coming along.
Violas won’t mind the cold. I’ve seen them blooming surrounded by snow.
This was the first daffodil I found fully opened. The cold probably wasn’t kind to the garden flowers but the few daffodils I have here which are budded, made it through fine. Scilla and reticulated iris also weren’t harmed. I have to remind myself occasionally that certain plants bloom in early spring because they can stand the cold. And when it comes right down to it this really isn’t unusually cold weather at all; it’s normal weather. It just seems cold because it was 60 degrees in February, which isn’t normal at all.
I saw a few magnolia buds that had started to open. It would be nice if most of them stayed closed for now. They’re delicate, and burn easily.
The first of the grape hyacinths are up at the local college. It’s funny; as I saw them there I realized that this small group of them, in this spot, are the first I see each year. Like clockwork they’ve appeared here each spring I think for as long as I’ve been doing this blog. Through them I’ve learned just how unique they are, or at least how unique their timing is; I know that I won’t see another grape hyacinth blooming anywhere for a week or two after I’ve seen these.
The witch hazels are still going strong. They can take a lot of cold and though they can roll up their petals I’ve seen a lot of them blackened over the years. I’d like to not see that this year.
Another of my favorite crocuses is up and blooming. I don’t really know how much cold this one can stand but I have seen them blooming in the snow before. It’s a beautiful thing and I’d like to see it last for a while.
I’m short on critters this week. I heard lots of birds but didn’t see many, and the animals have been quiet. I did see this bee peeking over the rim of a crocus though.
It was moving slowly and I didn’t know if that was because of the cold or if it was looking for a place to stop and clean itself up. It had obviously been rolling in pollen so it was probably about as happy as a bee can be.
As I finish this post on Friday evening I see that they’ve now changed the forecast, saying we could get 3-5 inches of snow tonight and tomorrow. Or it could be sleet and/or freezing rain. Whatever it turns out to be, it will be normal weather for March in New England. We may lose a few flowers but there are many more to come.
Every spring is the only spring, a perpetual astonishment. ~Ellis Peters
Thanks for stopping in.
New Hampshire Garden Solutions 