Plant Sightings

I’m happy to report that the first Ozark Beauty strawberries were eaten this week. We started with six plants last summer and since they had to adjust to their new surroundings they didn’t put out runners, so we still have six plants. Flowering started four weeks ago. The nice thing about this variety is that they’re an everlasting type, meaning that they will bloom and produce fruit two or three times in a growing season, not just once.

You can’t get a fresher taste of strawberries than picking them fresh!

This time of year is very pretty in the woodlands. Violets have been flowering for a month and now the blackberry shrubs are in full color. Ok, they’re not exactly colorful as the blossoms are all white, but they do give a splash of color in the otherwise green and brown landscape.

The Solomon’s Seal and False Solomon’s Seal are blooming all over the woods. Perhaps the wet, cool weather has been the best weather for the forest flowers. I haven’t seen this many blooming forest-dwellers in previous years. The ones putting on the biggest show are the Maple-leaved Viburnum. Everywhere you turn the fuzzy-looking flower clusters are shining white. Stamens project up and out so the clusters of flowers look fuzzy from a distance.

Maple-leaved viburnum flowering in the woodlands.

White stamens project above the white petals of viburnum. Unopened flowers have a tinge of pink.

Also blooming now are deerberry, bastard toadflax, dame’s rocket, common violets, and a host of planted flowers in the garden, like pansies, dahlias, marigolds, johnny jump-ups, false blue indigo and irises.

Early this afternoon we dug up several white raspberries from a neighbor’s patch. The plants were going to be mowed down and we were lucky enough to know about this ahead of time. Since we’d been having lots of rain for the past week or so, the digging went fairly easy. Plants that we pulled out of the ground were placed in plastic grocery bags for easy handling and containment of loose dirt.

We planted the raspberries in three different places. The first area was a spot on the southwest side of the farmer’s lane in a partially open spot in the woods where the plants will get sun at mid-day and filtered sun for the rest of the day. This spot has several wild blackberries and elderberries so it seemed a likely place to dig in some raspberry canes. The second place was at the edge of the woods in the back yard and these plants will get late morning to early afternoon sun. The third spot was at the edge of the woods on the east side of the backyard and these plants will get sunlight from about noon to late afternoon. By planting in several locations we’re ensuring that at least some of the plants will grow to provide fruit.

Each raspberry plant had stiff canes from last year and some even had their flower buds developing on new growth. It will be interesting to note whether the flowers will continue to develop. Since they were dug up and re-planted within a few hours, perhaps they were not stressed too badly. It’s supposed to rain again tonight so the raspberries will be watered well.

The everlasting varieties of raspberry will bloom and set fruit more than once a year. In the fall all the canes will be cut down and fruit will arise the next year on the new year’s growth.

Now that we have about two dozen new raspberry plants, it will be interesting to see how they develop…and, eventually, how they taste!

Did you have a Happy Earth Day? We sure did, even if my knees kept me awake last night! We celebrated Earth Day by doing something nice for the piece of Earth that will sustain us this summer with fresh vegetables.

It had rained the previous couple nights and that made for easy digging and removal of weeds that were let go too long last year. The twisty tool with four pointed tips makes quick work of pulling up dandelions and other weeds. Got most of the garden weeded and cleaned up for planting.

We had a couple tons of topsoil delivered and had it dumped in a corner of the garden. We didn’t skimp on the quality of soil and opted for the Premium #1 grade mix of topsoil, compost and mushroom soil. Nicely screened of stones, too. Couldn’t be happier with the selection.

The natural clay and stone we call “dirt” will be tilled up in parts of the garden that either have nothing growing or tightly packed soil. It’s taken 3-4 years to get the garden soil in the shape it’s in now, but it sure could use more organics.

Some places the garlic and lettuce are already growing and we’ll just let those be as they are.

Well, now that the showers of April are soaking the mountains of Pennsylvania we can look forward to more trees blooming. So far, the brilliant red flowers and leaf buds of the maples have joined in with the yellow green willow leaves to announce that the growing season is upon us.

Grass is greener now and an abundance of Spring bulbs are showing their happy faces everywhere. First the snowdrops appeared with their bowed heads as if to say they’d rather still be slumbering. Crocuses were the next earliest in appearance sporting their deep purples, bright whites and glowing yellow flowers. Grape hyacinth are dainty little bulbs, and the flower color is such a deep hue of purple. These little blooms last for a week or more and appear in early Spring along with the snowdrops. Daffodils and narcissus come along next and they’re still blooming as we wait for the storm to pass over us. Hyacinths smell so sweet, and it’s too bad that they’re fast bloomers. They don’t stick around for very long, so I always cut one to freshen a room indoors with the scent of their bloom. Tulip buds are just now starting to stretch high enough so their big-petaled flowers can open.

The last couple days we saw the forsythia plant open its pretty yellow blooms and yesterday they were fully open. Since most of the trees aren’t yet showing green leaves and the landscape is fairly drab, the yellow of the forsythia really draws one’s eye.

Yesterday, we noted that the Northern Downy Violets were blooming in larger numbers than the previous two days. You have to look close to see them as they stand only a couple inches high. The natural smattering of little flowers all over the lawn and near the lane always makes me smile.

Scanning across the woods at the edges of fields you can see native cherry trees in bloom, which will last less than a week especially with rain forecasted for the next three days. In the towns nearby one can see the ornamental pears showing off their white blooms and a few tulip trees starting to open their hot pink and white blossoms.

Did I forget to mention the dandelions? Yup! Their yellow blossoms are fairly closed up today with the rain and lack of sun, but yesterday a million yellow heads were beaming, “It’s Spring!”

A few other plants stirring to life are the comfrey herb, the blueberry bushes, blue columbine, echinacea, moss peony, lilac, redbud, raspberries, elderberries, strawberries, and no doubt a bunch more, including lettuce, garlic and savory in the vegetable garden.