Snow During Spring Break, Part II

Yesterday I reported on the state of my yard after the snow started. Today I'm here to show you how the neighborhood held up during the snow. All of this has since melted, but it's still cold. There weren't any flowers except the depressed daffodils and fake flowers (a disturbingly common trend around here), but there were plenty of plants of note.

We'll begin with a couple of pictures of the yard around an interesting house. It's interesting because I uesd to live there. I spent the first year of my life in this house. The current owners are from out west, and they have removed all grass from the yard. Instead they have a gravel lawn chock-full of holly bushes, paths, and statues. Most residents of my hometown find this rather odd. I find it slightly distasteful. I understand not wanting to have much lawn when you could have a garden, but I don't understand stuffing your space with holly and gravel. The whole yard basically looks like this:

At least their sidewalk strip has some deciduous shrubbery and rocks on it. Not pictured: the small holly bushes on this strip.

Next, as I was walking down the street, I saw this. Why does this clump of trees excite me? Because of all the yuccas under it. I recently discovered that the flowers of Yucca glauca were edible. I believe this is the species that's popular around here. I'm not sure why yuccas are so prevalent in the midwest, but they are, and I saw at least forty individuals on my mile-long walk.

When the yuccas are in bloom, I'm going to come home, sneak around town, and gather up all the blooms I can find. Then I'm going to fry them, a la this.

As you might have guessed, I'm not the biggest fan of holly. But I do enjoy other evergreen shrubs. I don't know what kind these are, but they are holding up very well in this weather, and every bit of color helps.

After that I came upon a most unusual tree: a wine tree! It's been a long time since I've seen one of these. This one is very colorful.

My final picture during this outing was outside of an old, ornate house. The house is flanked by two of these trees, each of which is sporting buds. They look delicate.

After that shot, my camera batteries got tired, so I couldn't take any more pictures. But after I got home, I spotted this.

It seems I have six swiss chard plants now! Since these three are all together, I'm probably going to have to transplant them to distribute them more evenly. That should be simple enough to do.

What landscaping or horticultural trends are common in your neck of the woods? What's holding up well around you during winter's last hurrah?

Next post: yucca and wildflowers around the neighborhood.

Snow During Spring Break, Part I

It's snowing. Again. I was just getting started enjoying our daffodils and hyacinths, I was just about to start surveying the neighborhood for other springtime beauties, and then this happens. So here is my survey of the damage so far. These pictures were taken Sunday night, after it had started snowing but before any snow accumulated.

At this point the hyacinths have held up well. Now they're probably looking sad. I'll investigate that within the next couple of days.

Here's a better shot of the white ones. The color on these reminds me of buttercream frosting.

I don't know how well buds usually last in cold conditions, but these look like they're doing okay.

Finally, the daffodils. They look extremely sad. As I learned today, only a few plants around town have bloomed, and those few are regretting it right about now. The rest of them should be okay and bloom later on.

So that's the preliminary damage done in my yard. Today I went on a walk around town, though, so...

Next post: springtime snow in my hometown.

In Which I Attempt to Appreciate Winter

After spending far too many months in skin-bitingly, ear-achingly, breath-seeingly winter, we're done with it. At one point this winter, my car was trapped on ice for two weeks. At a couple of points, my pant legs froze solid as I was walking home from work. At several points, I slipped on ice.

But there are good things about winter too, right? I mean, there couldn't be spring without winter. Many plants cannot thrive unless their dormant bodies are chilled to a certain point in winter (this is called vernalization). So winter's pretty important. Plus there's snow cream (bowl of fresh snow + splash of milk + 1 Tbsp sugar or sweetener + a few drops vanilla = wintry heaven).

And there's always...well, that's about as far as I've ever gotten. Until now. Walking around campus this winter, I've noticed one other benefit of the cold, dark season: visibility. Without leaves on the trees, you can see things like ornate roof designs (see the Loebner magnolia pictures in Campus Smells Spring's Approach) and birds' nests. That's my focus for today because I've found a lot of them.

This tree is near the older buildings on campus. I spied five birds' nests in this one tree. I've never seen so many nests in one tree before!

Looking back at these pictures, I can't see where the fifth nest is, but I know I've seen five. As a plant person, I appreciate birds for their beauty and their tendency to eat and disperse seeds.

The rest of these trees are on my way to work, near a fairly large street. The birds around here are so brave, they wouldn't mind building their homes next to highways. In this first example, notice how the nest is not supported by a fork in the branch. It's just balancing on one branch. I wouldn't want to live on such a precarious perch, but obviously the birds manage.

The best thing about birds' nests is that you can watch the bird family as it grows over the years. This isn't really possible if the nests are in trees covered in foliage, but the empty nests are still nice to see. I have no idea how birds build these suckers. One doesn't think of birds as being particularly dextrous or creative. This nest, at least, seems more stable.

I also don't understand how birds can navigate the thick foliage around their homes or remember exactly where their nests are. That's especially true for the birds living in the tree with five nests.

This was the only nest I managed to capture with a bird around it. The bird is the smooth, round shape just above the nest.

And after I took that shot, she flew off!

So apart from snow cream and preparing plants for spring, birds' nests are about all winter is good for. Are there any other advantages you can think of? Do you enjoy birdwatching when you're out in nature (or in the middle of small cities)?

Thanks for reading.

Next post: the plants that live at my house.