Spring Beauty Pageant

Since it's spring, it should be of no surprise to anyone that I saw a bunch of flowers on one of my many recent walks. Here I will display the highlights. All of these beauties are winners in their own special ways.

Up first is the grape hyacinth (Muscari botryoides). This spring bulb is gorgeous but deadly, as it imparts severe hallucinogenic effects to those who consume it.

These particular grape hyacinth blooms look much bluer than I'm used to seeing them. Perhaps this is a regional difference, or due to this year's odd weather.

Hiding behind the hyacinths was this cute flower, who's our next contestant. This plant would also appear to be a spring bulb, but I don't know what kind. The bloom looks like the combination of a daffodil and an orchid.

Up next is a white-blooming tree. There were several of these around. It's hard to picture the wonder of spring without thinking of a tree completely covered in white petals.

Scott's in this pageant too! He's blurry, though he is adding even more flora to the occasion.

I worked really hard to get exactly half of his face in this shot.

Moving on, the campus landscaping people have planted cool-season ornamentals in the massive containers near the library. While the heights of these plants don't warrant the depth of that container, their colors and general cheeriness do the trick.

I really like all these cool colors. White and violet always work well together, and pansies are some of my favorite spring flowers, so this combination is definitely a winner to me.

The reddish varieties add to the container as well. They make the collection more "sunset" than "midnight."

All the blue foliage in these containers is an interesting choice. It complements that purple flower to form our last contestant.

Which contestant would you vote for? What other spring beauties have brightened your day recently?

Next post: a private plant collection.

Lovely Landscaping

The College of Agriculture has a distinct advantage when it comes to landscape design: it offers a landscape design major. That said, its landscaping efforts are beginning to pay off, as the Agriculture building looks as cute as can be at the moment. Here's why.

These pansies (Viola wittrockiana) have been in the greenhouse for a while, and they're some of my favorite ornamentals. There are all sorts of breeding tricks one can do with pansies, such as making them look like they have faces (kinda creepy), but I like the yellow and brown ones the best. My grandmother always used to plant pansies like this, so I guess I'm biased. But isn't this just precious?

The other impressive display outside the Ag building is the daffodils. These were planted last fall by students who were in the horticulture class I'm currently taking. I like the variation within the group. Wouldn't you love to sit at that bench and read while enjoying some tea? Fortunately, it's warm enough to do that now.

What specifically caught my eye was the variety with the dark orange petal. These aren't normally my favorites, but they do add interest to an otherwise uniform batch of daffodils.

Also outside the Ag building is a group of what I believe is forsythia. The small bushes are starting to bloom, but unevenly, and the result is pretty scraggly. If it shapes up soon, I'll go back and photograph that to round out the "yellow on yellow on yellow" theme the school is following.

What plants are impressing you this spring?

Next post: more spring developments.

P.S. An update on henbit: last night I ate some cooked henbit in beef ramen noodles, and it turned out very well. If you are cooking cup ramen, you can just add the henbit with the hot water. If you are cooking ramen on the stove, I recommend adding the henbit after it's cooked, so it will cook while you're waiting for the broth to cool.

I also ate some henbit (along with purple deadnettle, which is very similar and also edible) on a roast beef and muenster sandwich today. It tasted okay, but one of the plants made my throat feel strange for a while. The moral of this story is: if you're going to eat said plants, either chop them up raw into a salad or cook them (I've heard they're good cooked with a little bit of water, some butter, salt, and pepper).