Tuesday, March 8, 2022

March 8th -- More signs of Spring at the Cloister at Three Creeks



I'm now finally able to edit and upload videos in near real time. Welcome to the 21st Century, you old hermit!

Following my previous video, in which I showed the very first sign of spring at the Cloister at Three Creeks--a lone bloom of Spring Beauty, the signs of spring have been busting out in force.

Of course, the showy garden plants get all the headlines, because they are featured in everybody's roadside plantings. Two days after the video, on March 4th the earliest daffodils, the King Alfred variety, burst into bloom in the area. Two days after that, following a day in the low 70's, the Japanese import, Star Magnolia burst into bloom; and just today, in yards all around the area the forsythia opened its bright yellow flowers. Forsythia is a heavily hybridized combination of two natives of Asia, hybridized in Europe in the late 1800's and now widely distributed.

But out in the woods around the Cloister, these imports are not to be found. What I've featured in the video are two wild and purely natural natives that are the earliest blooming woody plants, red maple (Acer Rubrum) and common Spicebush (Lindera benzoin), along with the first herbacious wildflower other than Spring Beauty, and its delicious relative, along with two other edibles, one a native staple, and one a horribly invasive pest plant in this area.

I won't give away all the details. Watch and enjoy.

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