Thoughts on the last 3 months and a favorite poem

Everyone seems to complain about February. The shortest month of the entire year seems never to be gone quickly enough.  A day or two of very warm spring like days.. then, for the most part, winter continues.

February

In February it will be

My snowman's anniversary

With cake for him and soup for me

Happy once, happy twice

Happy chicken soup with rice.

                                        written by Maurice Sendak

March is the windy month. 31 days, a long month as months go, and yet no one complains about the length, just the fact that it is still winter...still cold, not spring like at all.

March

In March the wind blows down the door

and spills my soup upon the floor

It laps it up and roars for more!

Blowing once, blowing twice

blowing chicken soup with rice.

                     written by Maurice Sendak

April finally arrives.. a 30 day month.   Everyone has accepted that it can and will rain and/or be cloudy for most of the month. It is just a given. Even when the weather actors say ' warm and sunny', it is not unusual for the day to become overcast and sprinkle.
 

April

In April I will go away

to far off Spain or old Bombay

and dream about hot soup all day.

oh my oh once

oh my oh twice,

oh my oh chicken soup with rice.

                                        written by Maurice Sendak

 

 

and now the last day of April.  So much to look forward to in the month to come.  The last frost date is May 15th. The grass is very green and the dandelions look fabulous against the green.  Good bye April 2011.

 

friday end of april

We had torrential rain Thursday. At least an inch between 3 heavy downpours.  Today started out sunny and warmish. by one p.m. The sun was gone and it has become  overcast and foreboding.  Seems to have gotten a little cooler, or at least a little breeze for now.

Today was the day Prince William of G.B. married Katherine Middleton, soon to be princess Katherine.  The coverage on the BBC channel started at 2 a.m. (eastern time) and has been going on and on all day.

It was fascinating to see the ladies and their dresses, but the hats were FABULOUS.   Prince Andrews' two daughters were in attendance, princess' Beatrice and Eugenia. I did not care for the blue dress princess Beatrice wore. Her hat was very interesting.   I did like princess Eugenie's dress and coat, but the  hat... was quite bizarre.  While you probably cannot see it, her black eye liner made her look like a hooker.  The overall effect was not pleasant.

how strange is that tan hat??

Viola sororia "Freckles"

Viola sororia ‘Freckles’
	Common name :  Woolly Violet
	An unusual selection of a violet native to Eastern North America. Plants form a mound of large heart-shaped leaves, bearing loads of large pearly-white flowers in spring, each heavily spotted and freckled with deep china blue. Excellent choice for a children's garden, growing easily in any shady area. Combines beautifully with spring blooming bulbs, especially Daffodils. These will seed around freely in the garden, so choose a site where they can spread. Flowers are edible!

	Conditions	Appearance
	Sun Exposure   Partial Shade   Full Shade Soil Type   Normal   Sandy   Clay Soil pH   Neutral   Alkaline   Acid Soil Moisture   Average   Moist Care Level   Easy	Flower Colour   Deep Blue   White Blooming Time   Early Summer   Mid Spring   Late Spring Foliage Color   Deep Green Plant Uses & Characteristics   Accent: Good Texture/Form   Border   Containers   Cut Flower   Edging   Ground Cover   Massed   Wild Flower   Woodland Flower Head Size   Small Height    15-20 cm    6-8 inches Spread    15-30 cm    6-12 inches Foot Traffic    None Growth Rate    Fast

the end of the last tuesday in april 2011.

I spent the day doing as i please. walking dogs, taking photo's, even  scored 1/2 a dozen small  rose of Sharon bushes.  Impromptu lunch with friends, and while we were looking at emerging perennials.. i spied violets growing in the lawn... yes of course, everyone has them but these were something i had never seen. These were white with violet colored spots.  My friend, Deb, took a few photo's with her Iphone and mailed them to me.  While not perfectly in focus, you can see the spots.  if i can, i will go back and take more photo's.what a find!

D.Witt- Iphone

D.Witt-Iphone

The last tuesday in April

Just a glorious morning, warm and sunny.  On my  dog walk i noticed  the spring flowers, violets & spring beauties all turning their cheery little faces to the sun.  I never noted this before but it makes perfect sense.

i found some yellow violets and will have to get the camera and go back for a photo shoot.  checked an area where i used to have just a few 'star of Bethlehem' spring flowers.  Looks like they  haven't bloomed as yet.  Just 2 clumps in a spring wet area.

You all remember my fondness for small containers and little sprays of early flowers?   Well my long time friend, Dawn, went one better.  Finding and using what she had on hand to create a one of a kind spring arrangement in a one of a kind container.  check it out!

D.Bilski, April 2011

 

 

 

Yes that is a used shotgun shell.  Dawn called it the 'redneck' vase.  I call it very inventive!

More on dutchman's breeches.

Dicentra cucullaria (Dutchman's breeches) is a perennial herbaceous plant, native to rich woods of eastern North America, with a disjunct population in the Columbia River Basin.^[1]
The common name Dutchman's breeches derives from their white flowers that look like white breeches.

Dicentra cucullaria (Dutchman'  Breeches)

Height is 15-40 cm. Root is a cluster of small pink to white teardrop-shaped bulblets. Leaves are 10-36 cm long and 4-18 cm broad, with a petiole up to 15 cm long; they are trifoliate, with finely divided leaflets.
Flowers are white, 1-2 cm long, and are born in spring on flower stalks 12-25 cm long.
Dutchman's breeches is one of many plants whose seeds are spread by ants, a process called myrmecochory. The seeds have a fleshy organ called an elaiosome that attracts ants. The ants take the seeds to their nest, where they eat the elaiosomes, and put the seeds in their nest debris, where they are protected until they germinate. They also get the added bonus of growing in a medium made richer by the ant nest debris.
The western populations have sometimes been separated as Dicentra occidentalis on the basis of often somewhat coarser growth, but do not differ from many eastern plants in the Appalachians.

Dicentra cucullaria (Dutchman's Breeches)

Medical uses

19th century illustration

Native Americans and early white practitioners considered this plant useful for syphilis, skin conditions and as a blood purifier. Dutchman's breeches contains several alkaloids that may have effects on the brain and heart.
However, D. cucullaria may be toxic and causes contact dermatitis in some people.

Easter Sunday evening..

Out for a stroll this afternoon and remembered that we had Dutchman's breeches growing  in the woods just down the path.  Just a few lacy leaves year in and out, but always at least one stalk of flowers.  Sure enough, i found them where i expected them but was surprised to find more then anticipated.  Maybe i did not examine them the last few years, so they grew happily with no watchful eye fretting about them.

this is generally what i found year after year.

this year there were 2 little clumps, and low and behold.....

a third larger plant (only took 30 years)

difficult to see but the " breeches"

several spikes of flowers too.

Easter Sunday, 2011

              May this Easter sunday bring you a happy heart and May Your spirit rejoice in the risen Lord.

Checkered Lily

Years ago, i planted a dozen of these little flowers. in the 30 years we have been here, I generally have one or 2 come up.  Only one or 2.  This year ...one.

here is mine:::

"On sunless days in winter, we shall know
By whom the silver gossamer is spun,
Who paints the diapered fritillaries,
On what wide wings from shivering pine to pine the eagle flies."

-Oscar Wilde
(1854-1900)

 
When Oscar Wilde speaks of "the diapered fritillary,' he means the little Checkered Lily (Fritillaria meleagris), for "diapered" is a very old traditional term for either a checkered pattern or the pattern known as "harlequin" or a checkerboard of diamonds.

By the last week of March or the first week of April the Checkered Lilies are poking up their bizarre checkerboard flowers, adding a bit of oddity to such early spring flowers as muscaris, early daffodils, & squill.

The bell-flowers which lend them the alternate name Missionbells begin early spring & a few will still be with us late spring. It naturalizes by self-seeding. They are small enough not to be a distraction but beautiful & odd enough to simply delight.

They are also known as Guinea Hen Flowers because the checkerboard pattern resembles the patterning on guinea hens, for which reason the species name meleagris means guinea fowl. The genus name means "Dicing Box" & it is easy to imagine a wicker-woven dicebox with just such an appearance as these dangling flowers.

Another name occasionally attached to it is Snake's Head Frittillary or Snakehead Lily, because the blossom, before the bud is fully opened, reminds some of a striking cobra. It was sometimes associated with death.   Those who imagined this flower to be serpenty & sinister lent it such common names as Death bell, Madam Ugly, Widow's Veil, Snake flower, Toad heads, Weeping Frits, Sullen Ladies, Drooping Tulips, & other such downcast-sounding titles.

They were also formerly called Lazarus Bells again associated with death, or Leopard Lilies, but these names were corruptions of Lazar's Bells or Lepers' Lilies, because the shape & markings of the flowers were suggestive of leprosy, while the overall shape of the flower was reminiscent of the bells attached to the clothing of beggar-lepers to announce their arrival or warn of their presence. This antique association with lepers & leprosy would seem to be the half-remembered reason for their association with death, since there's nothing in their beautiful appearance that would otherwise explain mistaking them for sinister.

As one of the longest-cultivated fritillaries, it was a regular feature in Elizabethan gardens. They were formerly known as Narcissus caperonius or Caperon's Narcissus because they were first brought to England in 1572 by a druggist named Noel Caperon who found them in France. Caperon was afterward a victim of the St. Bartholomew Day Massacre in 1578. For many years thereafter they were thought originally to have been native primarily of France, but were eventually discovered to be a rare species native also to England.

The checkered lily was once in fact native of damp meadows throughout Northwestern Europe, but is today disappearing over much of its natural range from habitat loss & humanity's population intrusions. It became endangered in England, where children picked them before they could complete their reproductive cycle. It is now protected & making a slow comeback in the south of England. And it will never be extinct for as long as people love them in gardens.

Holy Saturday, still cloudy but a little warmer

As often as i walk around and view the flowers blooming here all spring and summer, i rarely bring any inside. I love to see them outside in the natural light.  It is a treat to come across them every day.  Once inside.. always means more clean up at some point and bugs too. 

I do love small bouquets or single flowers highlighted  in small  pretty containers.... especially salt or pepper shakers that have been missing a mate. Gives them a new purpose.  The salt/pepper shakers are easy to find at flea markets and pretty inexpensive to pick up if the mate is missing too. 

periodically i send a few of my collection to the recycling container as i don't need dozens. just recently abandoned the green and brown bottles from vanilla or other extracts.

Here are a few of my favorite lone salt/pepper shakers.  These i have enjoyed for a long time now.

holy saturday

How can you not love Pansy's?? especially ones that were planted last fall and have been happy enough to bloom again this spring.

3rd thursday in april, 2011

i got a lesson in cropping photo's.
make sure to click on photo to see it enlarge.
That is one big woodpecker!

Thursday is Woodpecker day

Well, i saw all the regular woodpeckers this morning, including the Pileated woodpecker, which i initially thought was a turkey!    Juliette and i were on a walk when she spied the bird on the ground at the base of a tree.  As it flew off i realized what it was.  We continued our walk, and the bird returned to continue to dismantle the base of the tree.  I have been watching the woodpeckers do this digging at the base of several dead trees. Ants? termites? definitely food, not nesting material.

The Pileated is the 2nd largest woodpecker around.    (Ivory billed is the largest but might be extinct, although i always here there are one or 2 left.  The pileated seems about the size of a duck.

So we have Downy, Hairy, Red bellied, yellow shafted flicker (which is in the woodpecker family) and pileated.  I always wondered what the flicker was doing on the ground. turns out that he/she digs up ant hills for food.  every one has a job, birds included.

 Don;t forget to click on the photo to see a larger version. also try to  zoom in on the dead tree.

pileated woodpecker on dead tree.

note:
here is a link to the local Wild Birds shop Website, who posted & enlarge my photo.
http://buckingham.wbu.com/content/show/18099

wednesday more flowers ...

Another flowering annual that self sews in shady places. silver dollars, honesty... pretty purple flowers.

   

 honesty

any of the three species of the genus Lunaria, of the mustard family (Brassicaceae). They are European annuals or biennials that are widely grown for their disklike, papery, seedpod partitions, used in dried flower arrangements. The best-known species, also called moonflower, money plant, moonwort, or satinflower, as well as honesty (L. annua), has four-petalled, reddish purple or white flowers that are borne in summer. It has become naturalized in some wooded parts of eastern North America. Perennial honesty (L. rediviva) has pointed oval seedpod partitions and pale purple flowers.

Trout lily

Trout Lily

Erythronium americanum

Other Names: Adder's tongue, American trout-lily, Dog's tooth violet, Serpent's Tongue, Yellow Adder's-tongue, Yellow fawn-lily, Yellow Snowdrop
 Caution!  Trout Lily can be strongly emetic  in some people (which means it makes you throw up a lot). 


Habitat
     A North American native perennial found growing in damp, open woodlands from New Brunswick to Florida and west to Ontario and Arkansas. Cultivation: a member of the Lily family Trout Lily is cultivated by seed or transplanting of the bulb or corm in fall. Prefers slightly acid well-drained soil, plenty of humus and requires semi-shade. The root is a deeply buried, bulb-like corm, light brown, about 1 inch long, and solid with white starchy flesh. Two or three leaf blades grow from the base and are about 3 inches tall, oblong, smooth, dark green, with purplish mottling, and about 1 inch wide. The slender stem is 3 to 4 inches long and leafless. The flowers of Trout Lily can be bright white or creamy colored to bright yellow it is about 3 inches across, lily-like and drupes with the six petals folded upwards. It blooms in April and May. Gather edible fresh leaves, bulbs and flowers in spring and root in summer to fall. Dry root for later medicinal herb use.


Properties
     Edible and medicinal, the whole Trout Lily plant is used as fresh salad additives, flowers are tasty, or cooked as a pot herb. Trout Lily is used in alternative medicine as contraceptive, diuretic, emetic, emollient, febrifuge, stimulant. Plant constituents include alph-methylene-butyrolactone which has antimutagenic activity. This chemical prevents cell mutation and may prove to be a valuable weapon in fighting all cancers. The leaves and bulb are crushed and used to dress wounds and reduce swellings, for scrofula and other skin problems. A medicinal tea made from the root and leaf is said to reduce fever and fainting, tea also taken for ulcers, tumors and swollen glands. 

Folklore
 It is said that the Cherokee Indians would chew the root and spite it in the water to make fish bite. The young women of one tribe ate the raw plant in large quantities to prevent conception, probably due to the fact they were too busy vomiting!

Wednesday, more daffodils

There are just so many varieties of daffodils.  They bloom early, mid season and late. Easy to have a continual  show of color all spring.  Daffodils do well here and seem to multiply and spread  mysteriously too,
as opposed to lovely tulips that the mice, moles and voles love to munch on. 

rip van winkle, old double variety

Wednesday wild flowers

Every morning, as i walk the dogs, I check to see what is blooming.  I never take for granted that what bloomed last year will bloom this year.  I so enjoy the walk and the discovery.

wild flowers in a wooded setting come up early. They love the sun and take advantage of what reaches them early in the spring.  In just a few weeks they will be in the shade.

here are a few blooming now.  (don;t forget to ' click on the photo' to see the pictures enlarged, then 'back button' to continue.)

Virginia bluebells

trout lily

violet, light purple

violet, white and purple

Easter week

blood root is one of the early spring flowers seen here.  Many years ago i transplanted and lined the wooded path with blood root, so pretty to see the white flowers early in spring. infortunatly that plant with the little yellow flowers has become so thick as to choke off the blood root.  i still can find a few patches and hope they survive and thrive.

 

Wednesday, April 20 2011

Juliette always wants to accompany me on shopping treks.  Not sure why, could it be that she always comes home with something new and different??  Every now and again i accomodate her and yes she does seem to come home with a new toy or a dogie treat.