early flowering -Snow Trillium

 It's the first week of March and a few things do flower this early, but not very many native plants.  One of the cutest is the snow Trillium, T. nivale.  Flowering early is  quite usual, and so it pokes up through the leaf litter.  This is also the smallest Trillium at about 3 inches tall and each whorl about as wide. it is easy to overlook, which TTP did for years until an early scouting trip surprised this botanist.  Now it grows in our native plant gardens so its easy to watch for.  This is one plant with 3 aerial shoots, a whorl of three leaves and a flower on each, and it took several years to get this big.  OK this should have been a Friday Fabulous Flower, but I'm a couple of days early.

What happened to winter?

 It's the third week of February, the high temperature will be in the 40s and the weather is presently a thunder storm.  Very much unlike usual winter weather, so no surprise that snowdrops and winter aconite are in flower, along with early crocus and witch hazel. Never even touched our little snow thrower and that's good because Mrs. Phactor has her new electric vehicle plugged in there now.  Snowdrops usually  flower near the end Feb or the first week of March. The whole yard turns Scillla blue by the second week of March. But except for a couple of artic blasts, the winter of 2022-23 has been quite mild. But the Artic blasts may have killed a couple of TPP's plants.  A dwarf Tsuga is clearly dead (TPP has had great trouble trying to grow this plant over the years).  Too hot, too dry, and maybe too cold in the wrong time of year.  So even though the winter has almost been a no-show, lingering drought and brief sudden cold can be a bad combination. 

New Year GReetings

 Wow! 2023!  Who would have thunk it?  TTP's family is not known for their longevity, so it is quite a surprise to find myself still around and still fairly healthy.  Wealthy and wise were out for quite a while now.  Very cold weather came early (-11F) and it will be interesting to see what plants found that too cold, maybe the Ashe magnolia or the plum yews.  But we will always hope for the best.  Indoor plants are doing well, an azalea, a mistletoe cactus (Hatoria), and the queen's tears (Billbergia nutans), have been the subject of blogs before.  

TPP is a hopeless liberal, and he was very glad to see that our bastion of blueness (Illinois) remained so. I do not think TPP can stand another round MAGAness, so much stupidity in just one grifter.  Somehow things just don't seem to be falling into place the way they did last time.  But I don't like the guy running FL very much either. People do not seem to mind that the phoney covid cures and failure to encourage masks and vaccination have killed a lot of people.

Lots of new neighbors in our little'hood.  Covid has prevented many possible social events, so have to wait for better weather to get to know them. 

Hopefully the blogging will come along and TPP gets back in the swing of things.