Harbingers of spring

TPP had the opportunity to have a walk around the gardens.  Signs of spring are everywhere.  The witch-hazel are flowering, as are the snowdrops.  Winter aconite is lifting its flowers and showing the bright yellow perianth, although it appears to be growing in a new location, so it seeded in or some new corms were planted and TPP doesn't remember.  Now let's check the date: Feb. 25th.  Yes, that's early, but witch-hazel has flowered earlier by a week or so on several occasions; this would set a new record for the winter aconite which has never flowered before March 5 before.  This is only about 3 days earlier for snowdrops.  No idea which of these harbingers is most reliable.  The buds are swelling on the silver maple trees, and the filbert pollen catkins have elongated.  Got a bit of snowy rain but nothing to really discourage these real early flowers.  Picked a couple of forsythia branches to see it we can force some early flowers.

Friday Fabulous Flower - 1st of spring (almost)

Officially our spring is late.  The earliest spring flowering events will be later than any of the last 9 years, and TPP knows this because he has the data.  The earliest flowering in our entire neighborhood is a very old patch of winter aconite, Eranthis hyemalis, in the buttercup family.  As this image shows the plants are ready, but the weather has just been too cold, which will change in just a few days according to our weather guessers. Plants like this actually with sprout and grow under snow as this little plant has done, and when it all melts, the buds turn upwards and open.  No leaves are in this image, a whorl of green bracts sits just under each flower.  Ours will flower a week or so later because they are in a shadier location.

Friday fabulous flower - yellow lawn edition

This isn't the first time TPP has blogged about this neighborhood side lawn, but it's just so damned cheerful to see this early every spring.  The Phactors have long had blue lawns (see links on above page) and the first harbingers of blue are poking up here and there before the entire lawn turns blue, but this hedgerow of yellow (Eranthis hyemalis - Winter aconite, buttercup family) has been here for more than half a century showing that if you just don't disturb things, plants can do well.  This little bulb (corm) is a bit hard to get going sometimes, and while the tree rats don't eat them, they do dig them up when newly planted.  And then they flower, fruit, and disperse their seed until eventually you have a bed of early spring golden-yellow.

Spring bulbs: winter aconite = yellow cheerfullness

Why plant spring-flowering bulbs?  An old curmudgeon TPP grew up with used to ask, "Can you eat them?" As if that were the only reason for having plants, although here in Lincolnland's maize and soybean desert it does seem as if all other plants were banished or extirpated, fortunately TPP lives in a urban area, where some diversity persists, as opposed to the country.  March has begun with a couple of weeks of mild weather and the spring bulbs are responding.  Here is an image of a property nearby where someone planted some winter aconite (Eranthis hymenalis - buttercup family) some 50-70 years ago and the plants have naturalized to the area and spread, the result of a persistent long-term neglect. Now they announce spring with a remarkable cheerfulness, which helps feed the soul as the poets might say. Even after a short winter, you need some cheering up, and this is a very cheerful plant.  A few snowdrops are thrown in for good measure. Not satisfied with just a blue lawn, and a light blue lawn, and a violet lawn, Mrs. Phactor wants a patch of yellow lawn too.

Friday Fabulous "Flower" - Winter aconite

Although our estate is home to a great variety of perennials, our former residence still had a few things still lacking. Mrs. Phactor is trying to remedy that situation. Here's one of her recent successes even with the diligent efforts of our sciurious wildlife to dig up everything planted. Winter aconite (Eranthis hyemalis) is one of those plants sometimes referred to as "wolfbanes" and maybe you shouldn't try determining the edibility through trial and error (it might be your last mistake though). How very cheerful that this plant flowers as early as any spring flower, and because it's a woodland native (in Europe), it will do quite nicely in lawn and/or under trees, so almost everyone has space for this plant. The flowers are about 2 cm across, and while not huge, in masses, in early spring, they can produce quite an attractive display against the leaf litter. In looking at these flowers you will see the hallmarks of the buttercup family displayed quite nicely.