Weekend Updates

We'll start with the Evil: Garlic Mustard is flowering....

Now we can move on to some of the good.   So much is happening it'd be impossible to note it all!

Virginia Bluebells blooming:

Jacob's Ladder blooming:

Redbud not blooming, but the buds are very red:

SO many things are leafing out... silver maples, some red maples, and this buckeye...

Anenomes blooming:

Troutlilies are carpeting the forest floors, and their flowers are in full bloom:

Magnolias are blooming:

Trillium blooming:

Jacob's Ladder

Jumping In...

Having stopped writing for so long, it's hard to start again. I feel like I have to have something spectacular to say, something more than just that the columbines are in full bloom, and the lilies of the valley. The prairie alumroot. The phlox. The golden Alexander, Jacob's ladder. Shooting star and may apples. Although this is what I need to write, I suppose... Right now, there is plenty to report, though we are sort of in the lull between spring flowers and summer ones. Plenty happens in that lull, though, it's still spring, after all.

In the past four weeks, I started and finished the spring camping trips that I take with students. I traveled to Devil's Lake in Wisconsin and then to Warren Dunes, MI, for two rainy and chilly weeks in a row. (Both were beautiful...) Our front yard has been transformed from turf grass into a native garden and all the vegetables and herbs are in the ground. And finally, on Memorial Day, it got hot. Sweat-while-you're-doing-nothing hot... this, following a 48 degree high on May 26, which tied the record for coldest May 26 here ever! Spring in the Midwest...

School winds down this week for the summer, but we're busy busy all through the month of June. I shall try to be better about keeping data and blogging...

Between Scilla and Charybdis

We're not between a sea monster and a whirlpool, but somewhere between cold and warm; we're in the brown between the white and the green. In this time of anticipation, caught between winter and spring, come the scilla.

In garden news, I planted peas and spinach yesterday... carrots next weekend. The garden looks... hopeful. Empty, but that also means weed-free, with trellises waiting for the weight of vines to grab at them. The beds are so flat and rich brown and perfect. In the basement, tiny tomatoes (and friends), barely two inches tall and basking in grow light, wait for the time, 6 weeks hence, when they can sink their roots into the soil, too.

In the native world, early bloomers, like spiderwort, Jacob's ladder, golden Alexander are poking up through the dead remains of last year's plants, 2-3 inches tall...

Photo Journal

Currant flowers, 4-22.

First Jacob's Ladder, 4-22.

4-23. Milkweeds are some of the latest plants to emerge, so when their bullet-shaped seedlings come up, I know it's time to start looking for early signs of SUMMER.

4-23. Pasqueflower seeds.

Redbud flowers, 4-25.

Tulip studies, 4-25.

On and On I Go

So yesterday afternoon, working on a tip, I headed out to the backyard -- not much of a journey, I know, but it was the first time in a while I'd gotten away from the immediate porch part of the yard -- to see if the wild onion was, indeed, sticking its grass-like leaves about 2 inches out of the earth. It was:

(I know, that's a terrible picture. If it weren't raining right now, I might go out and get a better one. But it is raining, and it looks like grass anyhow, so this will have to do ya, as they say.)

The onion wasn't the only thing I found... things are getting exciting. Let's just say that nature is not a procrastinator. The snow cover has been gone less than a week, and already things are popping up, starting to get their work done. It makes sense, I guess. These plants, they have 6, 8 months at the outside, to go through a whole life cycle... they have to grow and photosynthesize, to flower and fruit and seed. They have to do it all with rabbits and bugs nipping at their flesh, and in spite of my puttering around them. That's a tall order, and I can't really blame them for wanting to get a jump on the spring. One example:

Here are the tiny shoots at the center of a Jacob's ladder. This is not the only example of baby planties I could show you, but I shall refrain. I recognize that looking at pictures of other people's baby plants is like looking at pictures of other people's baby humans. The first few photos are cute and it's great to see how much they've grown and changed... but after that, you're just being polite. (On the other hand, this being an anonymous internet thing, if you're bored, you'll click over to something else, right?)

Anyhow, in some ways, nature has put me to shame. As I walked about looking at what has decided to start its yearly work, I started to become overwhelmed. I love my gardens and like the rest of my yard, despite it being currently filled with holes like this

that some generous creature has dug for me everywhere... but they [the garden and yard, I mean] sure are a lot of work! And I looked around at the mess winter left behind that requires my attention, if it's ever dry enough to attend to it, and... well. It seems like the beginning of a long hike up a mountain. I know the scenery will be worth it in the end, but the first part, before you get above the tree line and you can't see the top, it can hurt your out-of-shape legs and be a bit discouraging. (Note about metaphor: as a person who favors plants as much as vistas, I actually don't mind the first part of the hike, but that sort of kills the concept.) But really, the ambitious flora in my life has made me feel like a lazy slug.

On the other hand... I am just so happy at the discoveries to be made, every day, multiple times a day, even. These were the best things I found,

little fungus* cups about 1 inch tall and almost 1/2 inch in diameter growing from the detritus. A whole grove of them sprung up in an area of about 1 square foot. I enjoy a good animal track mystery as much as the next person (probably more, let's be honest), but winter is just not as exhilarating as spring. I'm sorry.

*I think they're a fungus. There's certainly no evidence that they are photosynthetic like a lichen or a moss. I could look them up, but for the aforementioned lazy thing.

PS. I did, indeed, miss the snowdrops, now in full bloom. So I guess that was the first flower, but yesterday's can be the first wild flowers.

PPS. Today is seed planting day for some (not all) of our vegetables and herbs... it's all starting!!!!!