More To See Each Day

More glory of the snow flowers have come along. This is another under used spring flowering bulb that I can find only in one spot in a local park. I think it must be another of those flowers that people simply aren’t aware of. It’s too bad we don’t have a public garden here where people could go to learn the names of flowers they like and to see how they can be used in a garden.

It’s already time to say goodbye to the crocuses. They were beautiful this year despite the snow and cold they went through.

New flowers have taken over for the crocuses. Hyacinths and daffodils dominate this bed at the local college. I wish I could add fragrance to photos.

Most of the daffodils are in full bloom now. This one was fading a bit already but it was still pretty.

Bleeding hearts are up. These are the tall old fashioned bleeding hearts that disappear in the heat of summer. I like their spring foliage but sometimes it can be hard to catch it in this stage because it grows so fast. These plants will be blooming in no time.

Scilla blossoms are at their peak right now and since they’re my favorite color, I’m happy that they are. This spring bulb always looks better planted in large numbers, as these were.

I think it’s safe to say that lilacs are going to have a great year. As long as we don’t have another freeze, that is.

The Japanese magnolia buds that I showed in the last post have opened. As I mentioned they are this plum color outside….

…and white on the inside. As I also said, the petals tend to flop around a lot.

Violas seem tired this year. I can remember plants full of flowers but these plants at the local college are getting old so they can only manage one or two blooms at a time now. They were show stopping when they were in their prime.

It’s getting to be time now for the flowering shrubs and trees to add to the beauty. Japanese andromeda are one of the first shrubs to bloom and this year they are heavy with flowers that look like tiny fairy lights mounted in gold. They must like mild winters; I’ve never seen them bloom like they are now.

Once just by dumb luck I took a photo of a henbit flower and saw lots of hairs that I couldn’t see with my eyes, so every now and then I try for the hairs. This shot is this year’s the result. It’s a tiny but very hairy flower. It’s in the deadnettle family and some call it henbit deadnettle. The red parts seen under the hood are its four stamens. It has two long and two short stamens, much like ground ivy. I’ve read that its name comes from the way hens peck at the flowers but it isn’t the flowers they’re after; it’s the four tiny seeds the flowers produce.

Dandelions haven’t stopped since February. It seems like each time I go out I see even more. Many this year have had huge flowers on them but I’d say these were average.

I went to the wetlands hoping I might see some dragonflies but it must have been too early. I did see some red maples shining in the morning sunlight though, and they were beautiful. I also saw a small orange butterfly but it was too quick for me.

I sat on a picnic table on the side of the road and this bird flew into a bush beside me. Google lens says it’s a song sparrow but I wonder, because it squawked but didn’t really sing. Last year while I was sitting on the same picnic table a bird that looked like this one flew into the same bush, but that one sang beautifully.

When I got up to leave after sitting for a while I saw that a muskrat had come up out of the pond to eat some of the fresh green grass shoots. Its front paws looked just like little hands but with long claws. Muskrats must be famished for something green in spring; I’ve seen them do this once or twice before but it’s rare to see one expose itself in daylight when people are around. Muskrats can be aggressive if they feel threatened, so it’s best to give them plenty of space.

Muskrats are smaller than beavers and their ears are small, flat against the head and hard to see while a beaver’s ears are larger, protruding, and easy to see. The tails are the best way to tell them apart but the tail isn’t always visible. A muskrat can curl its rat like tail around its body as this one had but I don’t think beavers are able to do this with their longer, flat tails. Any time I’ve seen a beaver on dry land its tail was obvious.

On Tuesday it reached 70 degrees F. and the turtles came out in large numbers to soak up some warmth. At first I thought I was seeing just that larger turtle but then I moved a little and saw another one behind it. Then I got home and looked at the photo and saw another one coming out of the water. The scene looked like they had wrecked a bamboo raft and were scrambling to safety but it was really just last year’s cattail stems scattered around. While I was getting shots of turtles I heard a deep throated bullfrog croaking off in the distance; the first I’ve heard this year.

I think the mourning doves have been taking turkey lessons, because as I walked down a road recently I watched two doves stopping traffic. Anyone who knows these birds knows how skittish they can be but this particular pair were so interested in something in the road, they had no fear. A car came along at speed but the driver had to hit the brakes, letting the car creep along until the doves moved slowly out of the way, just as turkeys do. After taking a couple of shots I kept walking, but when I looked back there they were again, right back in the middle of the road. I’ve read that the name “mourning” dove comes from the mournful sound they make.

Willows were absolutely glowing on a recent cloudy day. I was surprised because they were female flowers, which in willows aren’t as showy or as brightly colored as male flowers.

This is what the female (pistillate) flowers look like. They’re smaller, paler, and obviously evenly spaced.

This is what the male (staminate) flowers look like. They’re a bright, banana yellow and are bigger than the female flowers. Though they are also evenly spaced it isn’t readily apparent. They often look kind of chaotic and one sided.

I went to see how the hobblebush flower buds were coming along. They aren’t very big yet because they bloom in May but they’re bigger than the last time I saw them. Each flower bud is between two young leaves that look like they’re made of corduroy. They are in their bunny face mode right how but soon the leaves will flatten out and uncurl and the beautiful snow white flowers will start to open. Hobblebushes are one of our most beautiful native viburnums.

The male flower bud scales on box elders have opened to reveal the reddish brown colored stamens within. They should grow quickly out of the buds now, and before long each stamen will dangle at the end of a long filament. A week or so after they have fully developed, the female flowers, which are sticky lime green pistils, will appear along with the leaves. Box elder flowers are quite beautiful but since the trees are considered “weed trees” they are becoming increasingly hard to find and get close to. Box elder is in the maple family and is considered one of the “soft maples.” The oldest intact Native American flute ever found was made from box elder.

Next time you’re walking under a tree why not stop for a moment and reach up and pull down a branch? Just take a look at the buds; it takes little effort and even less time, and you might be amazed that you have been walking right by something so beautiful for so long. These slightly hairy, richly colored Norway maple buds are about at their peak of beauty right now. Soon they’ll open and large clusters of yellow flowers will spill out of them. Norway Maple is actually an invasive tree but so many towns and cities have planted them as landscape specimens, it’s far too late to do much about it now. I find them in the woods fairly regularly.

Every bird, every tree, every flower reminds me what a blessing and privilege it is just to be alive.
 ~Marty Rubin

Thanks for stopping in.

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A Beautiful Recovery

As this photo shows the crocuses have recovered beautifully from the snowstorm I showed in the last post. Spring flowers look delicate but they’re built for snow and cold. April is when the spring ephemeral wildflowers really get going so there will be lots to see this month, both in and out of the garden.

I had to get another shot of one of my favorite crocuses. I hope you aren’t getting tired of seeing them. It’s their shading that makes them so beautiful, in my opinion.

The hyacinths are out fully now and this one reminded me of a stalk full of scilla blossoms. The color and the shape of the flowers is similar.

I see so many flowers it’s impossible to pick a favorite, but one of my favorite spring flowering bulbs is striped squill. It looks a lot like a scilla in size but its flowers are white with blue pin stripes. I think for me it is their simplicity that makes them a favorite. It’s amazing how just a simple line on a flower petal can look so elegant and beautiful. They bloom at just about the same time as scilla and seeing both blooming together is a beautiful sight. Years ago when I started this blog they were very hard to find but now any good spring bulb seller will have them. Still, I know of only one place to see them blossom. It’s hard to believe that something so beautiful could be so under used. I think the answer is simply that since people don’t see them in gardens, they don’t know what they are and don’t know what to ask for. I’ve had countless people ask me about them over the years when they’ve seen me taking photos of them. Their Sunday go to meeting name is Puschkinia scilloides, but simply Googling “striped squill” will get you there. Take a look; you might fall in love with them as I did years ago.

The hellebores have fully opened now, even though this shot was taken a slightly before this one had.

I took these photos because I thought you might like to see what most people walk right by. There’s a lot going on in there.

The buds on the Japanese magnolias are showing color now. I think this one’s name is “Jane.” It will have bicolor petals that are dark on the outside and pure white on the inside. Some are pinkish like this one and others are purple. Their colors are very beautiful but the petals kind of flop around. They’re very different than the flowers on a star magnolia.

Once again glory of the snow refused to blossom until the snow had melted. I don’t know where its name came from but I do know that I’ve never once seen it blossom in the snow. I have seen almost every other spring flowering bulb bloom in the snow however, so this one’s name must have been more wish than fact. In the end it really doesn’t matter, because it’s a pretty flower.

I looked for bees on all the garden flowers and saw none. Then I looked at the dandelions and there they were. I don’t get too many shots of things in flight but this bee was indeed hovering over the flower.

Robins used to be a reliable sign of spring but many stay here all year now so that isn’t entirely true anymore. What is a sign of spring when it comes to robins is when you see them pulling worms up out of the soil. That means the ground has thawed and is warm enough for the worms to come to the surface. It also means the soil is warm enough for spring wildflowers to start growing.

I was surprised to see this lilac’s bud scales had pulled back enough to reveal the flower buds within. It grows in a local park so I don’t know its name but I do know it will bloom earlier than any other lilac I’ve seen. We had a white lilac that my mother planted and that was the lilac that started me watching lilac buds in spring when I was a boy. I’ve watched them every year since. If you take a look at them once or twice each week they can tell you a lot about spring’s progression.  

In a different park in a different part of town this lilac with its striking bicolor buds grows. I haven’t been able to find out its name yet but its buds have grown quite a lot since I last saw them.

I saw a Japanese maple in the same park that still had last year’s leaves on it. That isn’t unusual but the way they have held on to their fall color sure is.

I went to see a favorite red maple and found that many of its male flower buds had been killed by the cold. Those we see here should be bright red, not that dark, bruised purplish color. This tree blooms a little later than most others and is very pretty, but not this year.

This shot from a few years ago shows the same tree full of flowers. What makes it so beautiful is how almost all the flowers bloom at once and how the filaments hold the stamens out away from the flower clusters so they look like bright, red and yellow pincushions. This was the first red maple to show me how spicy the fragrance could be from a tree all in bloom. Before the leaves appear red and silver maples can be tough to tell apart so I just call any tree that looks like this a red maple. The tree doesn’t care what I call it and neither do I, so until the leaves appear it’s a red maple. Once the leaves appear it might have to graduate to silver.

Skunk cabbages are producing leaves now. This is when, for just a short time, the leaves actually look like cabbage leaves. Soon each plant will be huge, with a crown of leaves 3-5 feet across and thigh high.

Coltsfoot flowers are everywhere now. Soon they’ll go to seed and have white cottony seedheads, and the leaves will start to appear. Spring ephemerals don’t stay around too long so to catch them you really have to get out there every day. Fleeting, is what they are.

There are a few plants that usually show fresh spring growth more or less at the same time, so when I see one I start to look for the others. They are plantain leaved sedge, seen above. Ramps, which are a kind of wild onion or leek. False hellebore, which is the most toxic plant in the spring forest. Skunk cabbage, spring beauties, bloodroot, and trout lilies.

They were a little hard to see in that previous photo but the plantain leaved sedge was full of new flower stalks like that seen above. Very soon now the butter yellow male flowers will appear at the top of the stem and the feathery white female flowers will blossom lower down on the same stem. Pennsylvania sedge is much more common and blossoms at about the same time. Pennsylvania sedge looks like clumps of grass growing here and there in groups on the forest floor.

I went to see the striped maples once again and found that all the bud scales had opened. Soon a large, velvety, pink and orange bud will appear from each pair of bud scales, and they’ll grow quickly. It’s hard to believe that all of the current year’s growth will appear from these small buds but it does.

Mouse ear chickweeds have started blooming. They are also called sticky chickweed because of the sticky sap the hairy stems produce. They are usually one of the earliest spring flowers to appear, along with ground ivy and henbit. This plant is all about fives, with 5 white petals and 5 green sepals in a star shape behind them. At the time of this photo it was already producing seed pods, one of which can be seen below the flowers.

Ground ivy wasn’t bothered by snow. If anything it’s growing better than it was. Sometimes spring snow is called “poor man’s fertilizer” due to all the nitrates it drags down out of the atmosphere, and there is a lot of truth in that. This is from a website called “Farm and Dairy”: Nitrates are the result of nitrogen dioxide dissolving in moisture in the clouds. Precipitation pulls the nitrates down to the ground creating poor man’s fertilizer. Rain and snow both contain nitrogen, but snow by its nature provides a better delivery method. Nutrients are slowly released into the soil as the snow melts. This is especially effective early in the spring when the ground is thawed. Nature is a wonderful thing! (Actually it isn’t a thing, but I won’t get into that now.)

While I was crawling around admiring spring beauty blossoms I saw tiny green wood frogs jumping in the leaf litter and I heard the first spring peepers on this day. Wood frogs make a kind of quacking noise and spring peepers peep. Loudly. I’ve also seen wood ducks and mergansers eating lots of unknown insects that were hatching in ponds, and Canada geese acting like they were looking for nesting sites. Nature knows that spring is here, now if only the weather would agree.

On this past Thursday we had another spring snowstorm that dropped over a foot of snow in northern parts of the state and caused avalanches in the White Mountains, and downed trees and powerlines, but in my yard I saw barely three inches. It was like the last storm; heavy and wet, but the difference between this storm and the last was, it stayed warm enough so nothing froze this time. You may have heard about the “Major nor’easter slamming into New England” and I suppose that was true in places, but here it was just more poor man’s fertilizer.

I focused on this little blossom and it was as if the beauty of all the flowers I’ve ever seen came together, right here in this tiny blossom. I’m convinced that one thing this world will never run out of is beauty.

Treasures are hidden away in quiet places. They speak in soft tones and often become silenced as we approach. They don’t beg to be found, but embrace us if we do happen to find them. They are the product of completely ordinary circumstances unfolding in wonderfully extraordinary ways. They are found hidden in the nooks and crannies of our existence; all around us if we quit allowing our attention to be captivated by that which is noisy and listen for that which is quiet and still. ~Craig D. Lounsbrough

Thanks for coming by. I hope nobody lost power during the storm.

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