History Repeats Itself

Last week began with a warm and beautiful Monday, followed by a cold and gloomy Tuesday.  This week has started identically... we broke 80 degrees on Monday, which was sunny and breezy and lovely.  Last night, a front came through -- it started with brief but violent storms -- the photo below is hail on my deck.  It only fell for about 5-10 minutes, but it was a loud and violent 10 minutes.  Overnight, the temperatures fell, and today we're looking at a high temperature about 30 degrees below yesterday's.  And it's not raining, but it's not dry, either... it'd be a good day to stay at home with a book or a puzzle, but that's not an option...

 Here are some other updates from the past 24 hours:

Leaf-out photos... above, basswood/linden/however you prefer to refer to Tilia species.  Below, silver maple, which is not only leafing out, but getting the famous samara "helicopter" seeds. 

Look at this fascinating fellow.  At one point in my walk yesterday, I brushed many of theses mayflies off my shirt.  They must have had an emergence in that area.

OK, I know this isn't the best photo, probably not even worth showing, but... look how YELLOW that goldfinch is in the center.  They just make me happy. 

And in the flower world... the first lilacs are starting to open...

...those redbuds have started to open...

...tomorrow I think we'll be showing crabapples opening, they're so so close!

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:

Our Mammoth Trip

Our trip to Kentucky was all about flowers.  I mean, sure, there was the cave, which, being the longest in the world and home to unique species, is the natural wonder for which the National Park was created... but we all know I'm a plant person.  

The trees gave a spectacular show.  Even before we got to Kentucky it started.  In northern Indiana, the oak trees had dangling flowers that completed the green haze of spring.  Redbuds lined the highway, their brilliant purple coloring our whole drive.  As we got further south and the roadsides became more wooded and less farmed, the redbud understory intermingled with dogwoods, with their showy bracts and distinctive horizontal branching pattern... there's something about the southland in the springtime, and this?  Is it. 

My dogwood sketch.  I wrote, "Dogwoods decorate the forest.  From afar, each looks like a perfect ornament -- open towards the sky.  up close, each bloom is slightly asymmetrical, bracts twisted and misshapen and bruised."

Another dogwood sketch.

 Exploring the forests above the caves, we noticed distinctive burgundy flowers hanging like bells from many small trees.  We didn't know, at first, what they were... and neither did any of the rangers that we asked, and  we asked several.  (In their defense, I think Mammoth Caves hires their rangers based on geological knowledge, not botanical...)  Leaves weren't much help as they were just emerging, translucent and tiny ad the terminals of the twigs.  Turns out, these were pawpaw flowers!  Very lovely and unique.

My Pawpaw sketches and description.

We also saw a number of ground-dwelling wildflowers, including but probably not limited to:
bellwort, bluebells, celandine poppies, chickweed, Dutchman's breeches, fire-pink, foamflower, forget-me-nots, ginger, irises, jack-in-the-pulpit, larkspur, Mayapples (not blooming yet), phlox, pussytoes, ragwort, rue anenomes, trillium (multiple species), twinleaf (not blooming), violets, wild geranium, something I didn't know maybe a snakeroot...

I realize I have been remiss about writing lately, in a time of year when the world seems to change every day. I can make excuses... I have been plagues by minor injuries and illnesses, as has my car. I have been on school trips. I have been extremely busy, what with this being such an important time of year for gardening, plus all of the above.

But the truth? I just haven't felt that much like writing, or taking pictures. When it becomes a chore...

And the world really is changing. I look out my window and see the first lilacs blooming. Just about everything is leafed out... even the oaks and the ashes have leaves at this point. Crabapples and redbuds are blooming. And it is still really cold. (Last week, we had a few days of pre-summer. In fact, it hit 90 in Chicago and the upper 80s where I was in Wisconsin. But that was just a tease, and then we had a weekend that didn't top 50 for even a single minute, and was wet to boot.) At least it's sunny today.

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.

These warm spring days, like yesterday and today, it's like waking up to a new world every day. You may recall that on Tuesday, I mentioned that bluebells and marsh marigolds were not yet blooming. Well, yesterday:

There you have 'em.

Another cool discovery of yesterday was this mayfly:

This one was on our deck, and then today another individual of the same species landed on my shirt at school. Clearly, this species of mayfly is having its day in the sun, so to speak. Mayflies have one of the best ordinal names -- ephemeroptera. The ephemeral insect. The adults live only a day, maybe two. In that time, they have one purpose in life -- to mate. They don't even eat! Like odonata but even more extreme, ephemeroptera are really water-dwelling creatures, living most of their lives as nymphs, where, unseen by humans, they play an important role in aquatic food chains.

Today, I had a very bust day at school and I didn't even carry my camera, so I missed shots of frogs and swallows. Actually, the best discovery of today was what I believe to be a sprouting waterlily seed. It was in the water, and kids thought at first that it was a small pinecone. When we pulled it out, it clearly wasn't a pinecone, and it had some roots -- less than an inch long -- and and shoots -- equally small, with minuscule, round leaves at the end. It was pretty cool.

At home, though, my yard is filled with new colors...

Redbuds haven't actually flowered yet, but all of a sudden the buds change the brown branches to purple.
In my yard, all the tulips opened today. They weren't the first -- I've been seeing tulips for over a week, but in my yard they all -- red, yellow, mixed, orange -- opened today.... as did the first bellworts.

So what will tomorrow bring?!? (Cold, is the predicted answer.)

A Mad, Mad World

The Gardens at Taliesin

Yesterday, we headed to Madison, WI, to spend the day exploring. Mad-town is really only about 30 miles north of us (and quite a bit further west). After visiting Frank Lloyd Wright's home at Taliesin (actually further west, in Spring Green), we headed to the Olbrich Gardens. Here is some of what we saw:
A pitcher plant with a fly perched upon it. The fly did not "go into the light," much to my dismay, how cool would that have been to see? The plant was in a bog planter, and I suspect I will be getting one next year, if possible, as someone (not me) was obsessed with them.
Flowering prickly pear, one of the only cacti that will grow outdoors this far north.

Tree seed series:
Sumac seeds turning red

Catalpa pods (small and green)

Sycamore seed (fallen from tree)

Redbud seed pods

Look at the size of this cottonwood!!!

And, speaking of really ginormous, look at the size of this tulip tree leaf! Have you ever?

In ickier news of the large, there was a huge population of Japanese beetles, and growing larger, as many were mating.

Spring seems here to stay.

Linden Leafs Out

New, translucent leaves line the linden branches.  Below is a sketch of a linden seedling.  Who would ever imagine that the seed leaves of a linden would look like that!

We have reached the point where it would be easier to list the trees that haven't leafed out than those that have.  Even locusts and sumac have leafed out.  (Well, some sumacs have emerging leaves; others don't yet.)

The first wild geranium blooming.
A cinnamon fern fiddlehead.

Shooting stars bloom.  For years I have had these in my garden; this is the first year they are finally happy enough to flower!

Also flowering: lilacs are beginning to open flowers -- yesterday each cluster had 1-2 open flowers; today they have 5-6.  Redbuds are in peak flowering mode.  Serviceberries are shedding petals.