As mentioned a few days ago, the winter aconite (Eranthis hyemalis) is coming into bloom. It’s a very hardy little plant, growing from a small, sort of misshapen tuber, native to the northern Mediterranean coast from southern France, across northern Italy, and down the eastern coast of the Adriatic and east to the western shores of the Black Sea. It’s very slow growing and the few that survived from my initial planting are only still only producing a handful of flowers. I should probably plant more, but last year was mostly a write-off in terms of gardening. We’re hoping to do quite a bit more this year.
Flowers and Plants
Winter Aconite (Eranthis hyemalis)
Moss
It was a beautiful day today and I needed to get out of my office for a few minutes to clear my head. I’ve been working on two specific problems with one of the systems I’m working on. I’m pretty sure I managed to get one of them solved and settled. The other is proving to be a little trickier but I’ve managed to get it pretty close to working. Sometimes it’s useful to step away for a little bit and think about something else. Then when you come back, you can see it with somewhat fresher eyes. I find that I often come up with new ideas at that point. This is true in other realms than programming. When I’m working on a crossword puzzle and get about as much done as I can manage, putting it down and walking away and then picking it up later is generally all I need to find some new answers. Today’s foray out into the woods let me to a bunch of moss, and that’s what today’s photo features.
Snow Drops (Galanthus nivalis)
I know I posted a picture of snow drops (Galanthus nivalis) on Saturday, March 02, 2019 but the flowers were not really open then and they are now. Our yard is fairly shady and the spring blooms seem to be a week or so behind those that get full sun. We have a few clmps of snow drops in the yard. Those I photographed last time are by the sidewalk. These are in the back yard. They are certainly a welcome sign of spring, often blooming when there is still snow on the ground (thus the name, I assume). I love the little touch of green on the central part of the flower. Green is fairly uncommon as a flower color, I assume because it’s so common on the leaves themselves. But it makes a nice change.
The snow drops are generally followed by the winter aconite (Eranthis hyemalis) and the Lenten rose (Helleborus species). One Lenten rose is already blooming but the others are just starting to come out. I suspect I’ll have more pictures of them soon.
Lenten Rose ‘Mango Magic’
It’s Lenten rose time again. With the recent snow and heavy rain, they are looking decidedly unhappy, but the blooms are coming and should soon be out in full. This one, a Helleborus called ‘Mango Magic’, it the furthest along of those in the yard. There is a very large one with deep burgundy flowers that’s doing well, also and probably needs to be divided up into three or four plants. I do love the deep color of that one but the brightness of this one and a few others we have are quite nice, as well.
Bromeliad
The couple that bought Margaret’s house gave her this bromeliad at closing, along with a very sweet card thanking her for choosing their offer and making their “dream of home ownership a reality.” We’re not very experienced with growing bromeliads but what I’ve read seems to indicate they aren’t all that difficult. They don’t need to be watered in the usual way and many of them don’t even have roots that take in nourishment. Instead, the cups formed by their leaves should be filled with water and that’s really all there is to it. They are not terribly long lived and often die after blooming but of course their blooms are what they are mostly grown for. They will often produce off-shoots, which can be cut off and potted up to replace the “parent” plant.
I once designed a house that has a conservatory inspired in large part by the Peirce-duPont House at Longwood Gardens, in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. In that, I imagined at the very least a section devoted to tropical plants, including ferns, orchids, and bromeliads. I’m very unlikely to ever build the house, of course, but I can picture it in my mind’s eye and enjoy the serenity of the indoor garden, sitting in a wicker chair with a pot of tea and a good book.
Snow Drops
The snow drops (Galanthus nivalis) along the edge of the woods near my office have been in bloom for a week or more. Those in our yard are in a more sheltered spot and tend to bloom later but they are coming out now. Early this afternoon I decided to take some pictures of them with snow all around them. I got a few like that but decided I like this close up better, even though it doesn’t show the snow. They’re not really open in this picture but they open up on warm days before closing up at night. With yesterday’s snowfall, they have gone back into winter mode but it won’t be long before they are open for good. The daffodils are also coming up and showing signs of buds in amongst the leaves. It’s still winter here, but spring is coming.
I’m A Fungi
A basidiomycete walks into a bar but the bartender tells him he’ll have to leave. He says, “But I’m a fungi!” I needed to get out of my office today so I took my camera and went out into the woods next to my building. There are a few snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis) starting to bloom along the edge of the woods, which is encouraging. I also came across the carcass of a deer. There wasn’t a lot left except bones and it explained the presence of so many turkey vultures circling over head. This bit of fungus caught my eye, because of the variations of color. Very pretty, in a decaying sort of way. The ground is very wet and I really need some Wellington boots when it’s like this. I managed to stay mostly dry, though.
Deodar “Flowers”
These aren’t flowers, of course, as the deodar cedar (Cedrus deodara) being a gymnosperm is a non-flowering plant (the angiosperms are the flowering plants). These are the cones of a deodar cedar growing near one of the buildings on our company campus. It’s getting to be a fair size tree, with branches large enough to sit on comfortably. My grandparent’s had a deodar in their front yard in North Carolina and I’ve always been fond of them, especially when they get a little larger and start to develop their characteristic cedar shape rather than the more conical shape of the younger trees. They are native to the Himalayas and we’re near the northern edge of their hardiness range but there are enough around that it seems safe to plant one, if you have the space (which most suburban yards definitely do not have).
Calocedrus decurrens (Incense Cedar)
I’m a little late posting this but after yesterday’s snow squall, we had a nice cover of maybe as much as two inches of snow this morning. It was quite cool, down around 10°F (-12°C) and I put some salt down but being that cold, it’s not going to melt very much. I took some pictures in the yard before Cathy and I left for work. The sun was bright and was shining through the branches of trees that had some ice on them, which was lovely but hard to record very well. I decided to post this photo of snow on the branches of an Incense Cedar (Calocedrus decurrens) that is in the back of our yard. I planted four of them in the fall of 2007 and three survived. This is the tallest of them and is about 15 feet tall, I’d say. It’s starting to look like a real tree. The other two are doing fine but are not as tall, being about 12 and 7 feet tall respectively.
Hamamelis (Witch Hazel)
I’m a huge fan of witch hazel (Hamamelis species). They’re small trees well suited to the suburban landscape and wonder of wonder, they bloom in mid-winter! Many years ago my father, Cathy, and I went to Brookside Gardens in Wheaton Regional Park in February and I remember falling in love with witch hazel at that time. Now whenever I see them in bloom, I remember my dad and remind myself that this is a tree I want to plant in my yard. Now that I have a space in the front yard that needs a small tree, this may be the spring when one gets planted. There are varieties with red, orange, and yellow flowers and I think all of them are terrific. The yellow, perhaps, stands out as being the brightest but they’re all worth the effort.
Ornamental Grass
After church today we had a nice lunch with some friends. It’s good to have friends and these are among the best. It was a nice day so when we left them, we decided to to to Lake Frank and take a walk. We started at the south end of the lake and walked across the dam. From there we went through the woods on the Parilla Path to the Gude Trail, which we walked to where it hits a parking lot on Gude Drive. The round trip was a little short of three miles and it was quite pleasant. Walking west (outbound) we had the sun in our eyes, so the return journey was nicer, I think. But these tassels on some ornamental grass were nice, backlit by the afternoon sun.
Fertile Fern Fronds
This is a fertile frond of a fern growing in a shady corner of our garden. I believe it’s an ostrich fern (Matteuccia struthiopteris) but it may be something else. I know I have a few ostrich ferns in that part of the garden, but there are other ferns and I don’t remember what they all are. Anyway, these ferns are dimorphic, with deciduous, green, sterile fronds and vertical, brown, fertile fronds. These give a nice element of interest in the winter and then the spores are released in the spring.
I would like to add more ferns to this part of the garden this spring. Last year we did very little gardening except for some weeding early in the spring. During the late spring and most of the summer we were overwhelmed with a lot of other tasks and the garden got away from us, big time. This coming spring, I’d love to get back out and take the garden back, but it’s going to be a big task. Not quite as daunting as taking a piece of wild land and putting it into cultivation, but not as far short of that as I’d like. Parts of the garden really need to be dug up completely and started over. There are a few plants we’d want to dig up and put into pots to return to the garden when the time comes, but for the most part, it just needs to be started over.
Sedum and Moss
In a small pot outside our front door is a tiny little sedum with moss growing around it. This is a surprisingly hardy little plant, being able to take single digit (Fahrenheit) temperatures in an above ground container without any significant problems. We aren’t sure which sedum it is, but Cathy’s guess was that it’s “Red dragon” which seems quite reasonable. The moss in this photo, with its two calyptrae (the spore bearing capsules), is a volunteer, but mosses are generally welcome here. The only places the grow that I would prefer they didn’t is between the shingles on the roof of our garage. I like them otherwise and would happily have a garden devoted to them, if I had the time and space.
Frost
It was chilly out this morning and everything was covered with frost. I started my car and while it was warming up a little, I took some photos of frost on the leaves in the yard. Once the sun began to hit them, the frost started to melt but I wanted to get them with the sun shining on them, so I moved around the yard as the sun moved to new leaves. I really like looking at frost and don’t mind the cold too much. It wasn’t all that cold, in any case, only for or five degrees below freezing. Colder days are almost certainly ahead for us, as winter is only just starting and doesn’t get into full swing until next month.
Japanese Maple Leaves
We went for a short walk in the woods after church today. The church is near enough to Rock Creek Park that we can get there pretty easily from the back parking lot. The sky was clear today, which was very welcome after yesterday’s torrential rain. The sun was shining brightly on some Japanese maple (Acer palmatum) leaves and I took a few pictures of the back-lit leaves. None of them turned out quite as well as I would have liked, but this one is pretty nice. I really love the colors and the contrast between the leaves and the blue from the sky, filtering through the trunks of the trees.
Japanese Maples
Just over two weeks ago (on Friday, November 02, 2018) I posted a picture of Japanese maples from the other end of our neighborhood. I mentioned a week or so later that most of the leaves were down from those trees. Not all the leaves, however. We were driving home past that yard this afternoon about about 3:00 and the light was shining through the remainder of the leaves on one of the trees (the other trees in the yard are basically bare). This one tree was still amazing and I stopped to take a few pictures. A man stopped and said, “you should have seen the trees a couple weeks ago.” I said I know, they were amazing.
Milkweed Seed
It turned cold over the last few days. Not bitter, winter cold, but relatively cold with lows down in the mid 30s. This morning it was below freezing for the first time this fall and the forecast is for more of the same. In the sus this afternoon it was pleasant enough if you’re like me and prefer cool weather to hot. The insects are starting to be less in evidence and Cathy was actually looking for dead insects in the yard to send to a friend (it’s probably just about as weird as it sounds). She found a carpenter bee and I took pictures of it before making sure it was dead with a little chloroform in a jar. I also took pictures of holly berries on the tree at the corner of our house. Then I spotted this milk weed seed on the top of a drying Verbena bonariensis stem and decided that’s what I’d use for today’s photo.
Phalaenopsis Orchids
I had planned to go out and take some pictures around my office building today. The sky was clear as I came in this morning, which was welcome after the two days of soaking rain we’ve had. By midday, however, the sky had clouded up again. It didn’t rain but was a lot more gloomy than the morning promised. Of course, colors are often more intense under an overcast sky, but I never managed to get outdoors to take advantage of that. By the time I got home, of course, it was dark. That’s one problem with this photo-a-day thing in the winter. I have a lot less opportunity to get pictures outdoors. I can stop on the way to work or go out during the day, but otherwise, I’m confined to pictures in the house (or night-time pictures, which are hard). But we have this orchid in bloom, so I got pictures of it and that will have to do.
Cosmos
It was an absolutely gorgeous day and after church we decided to drive out to Rocklands Farm (http://www.rocklandsfarmmd.com/) and enjoy being outdoors. We walked around and I took some pictures of oriental bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus) growing on fence posts. The little fruits were quite lovely in the afternoon sun. I also took some nice pictures of the barn reflected in the pond that’s below it. I decided to post this picture, though, because it’s a little different from the fall colors that have so dominated my posting of late. This is a cosmos flower photographed from behind and I think it’s quite pretty in an understated sort of way.
Dogwood
There’s an old joke that you can easily identify dogwood by its bark but you can also spot them this time of year by the color of their leaves. The deep, burgundy color really stands out, particularly against the much more common yellow of many of our other native trees. The oaks tend to be dark orange or rusty reds. The maples range in color from bright red (as in the Japanese maples seen in yesterday’s post) to pure, electric yellow. It’s really a lovely time of year and unfortunately seems to be the shortest of the seasons. The rain last night knocked down a lot of leaves and the forecast for the coming week is for a lot more rain, so by this time next week, it may only be the oaks and beeches holding onto their drying leaves.
Japanese Maples
I’ve photographed these particular Japanese maples before. They are at the other end of the neighborhood and they have just about the most beautiful fall color of any trees I know. Individually they are lively but in combination they are spectacular. The near tree, on the left in this photo, is nearly red, with orange undertones. The farther tree is more orange and lighter and brighter. There is also a third Japanese maple on the right, further away still. That one is a deep burgundy color. I think this photo is improved by the small amount of gree from the azaleas in the foreground. I took quite a few pictures this morning and I like most of them. A woman walking her dog passed me and we agreed that these trees were special.
Zelkova Trees
Getting pictures of the Zelkova trees that line Norbeck Road is sort of an annual thing for me. As I was driving east this evening I knew the light would be nice and with the bright blue sky and the scattered clouds, it seemed like an ideal day for it. I stopped at the grocery store but the light was still right when I was done, so I pulled off where the trees start and got out to take a dozen or so pictures. One thing that makes it hard is the contrast between the shady parts of the picture and the brightly lit leaves in the sun. But that’s part of what I like. They aren’t as fully in color as in previous years, but they’re pretty nice, nonetheless.
More Maple Leaves
Here’s another shot of maple leaves in our back yard. I often feel like the colors in the current year are different from previous years. Not so much that they are different but that the timing is different. So I looked back at pictures of this tree the last two years to see when it was in full color. I have a picture posted on October 29 of 2017 and two pictures on October 27 and 28 in 2016. So I’d guess it really isn’t all that different this year. The leaves on the ground under the tree are just about as nice as those still on the tree. Set off by the bright green of the grass rather than the pale blue of the sky but in this case without the direct light of the afternoon sun on them.
Purple Coneflower
The purple coneflowers (Echinacea purporea) is long since finished blooming. In fact, most things have. There are still flowers on a few plants but they are getting fewer and farther between. But that’s not the end of interest in the garden. In the fall we start to see shapes that we don’t notice in the summer amid all the color. The seeds of this coneflower are lovely in their own way, especially the way they detach and leave this little floret of spikes as they are carried off, probably by gold finches and other small birds. The gold finches, too, have lost their summer finery and are dressed in pale brown for the winter.
Autumn Colors, Maple Edition
The two maple trees in our back yard are both fairly misshapen and a little bit stunted. Nevertheless, they do produce some really great color each fall. They also provide some much needed shade in the summer. So I’m not planning to take them out any time soon. When we first moved here, I had my eye on them as being the first to go. I planted four California incense dedar (Calocedrus decurrens) trees as a screen so that when they got bigger, I could take the maples out and still have the view through to the yards behind mostly blocked. Those trees are a good 15 or 20 feet tall now and being pretty dense evergreens are better screens than the maples, even in the summer. Nevertheless, we’ve taken out three larger trees in the back yard (well, one of those fell down, which is a bit different) and two in the front.
Dogwood Leaf
It’s interesting that each year always feels different to the last. It’s past the middle of October and there’s hardly any fall color here yet. Surely this is much later than last year. Well, going out and taking pictures every day for a few years has a few advantages. I can go back and find pictures of fall color from previous years, not just here but in my full collection of photos. As it turns out, the maple in our back yard generally gets to be fully red fairly late in October, with pictures from October 27 both last year and the year before. So, we’ll see what it looks like in nine days and see if the colors really are significantly later this year. In the meantime, this little dogwood seedling growing in our back yard has some pretty good color. It seems to suffer quite a bit from mildew, but it’s doing fine otherwise.
Tradescantia virginiana (Spiderwort)
This spiderwort (Tradescantia virginiana) is growing right outside our kitchen door and although it doesn’t have so many flowers at this time of the year, it still manages to put out a few. They are such beautiful little flowers and I can’t imagine not having them in our garden. The color ranges from blue to purple and it’s not always the same in photographs as it is to the eye. It’s possible that some of the color comes from the physical structure of the flower rather than from a pigment but I don’t actually know for sure. Examples of structural colors include those found in peacock feathers, butterfly wings, and the beautiful iridescence of beetle carapaces. If you are interested in structural colors, you might find this article interesting: Color from Structure in The Scientist.
Mushrooms
It’s mushroom season in our back yard. There were a total of five maple trees running in a line through our back yard when we bought the house. One of them, a silver maple (Acer saccharinum) was clearly large enough to be older than the house but the others, I’m pretty sure, were planted about the time the house was built. Three of the five are gone, now. One came down in a storm and I preemptively took two more down, including the largest one, to prevent the same thing happening and it falling on the house. Each year since then, mushrooms appear early in the fall and I have to assume they are living on what remains of the roots of those trees. They appear, flourish, and then turn to mush in about a week. When they become mush, they appear to be devoured by the grubs of some insect or other. It’s pretty gross, actually, but all part of the grand panoply of life.





























