Today is officially the first day of Spring! By the way, it’s supposed to freeze tonight. Despite some recent chilly weather plenty of plants at the farm have seen fit to go ahead and bloom. Here’s a select few:
Green and Gold (Chrysogonum virginianum) has been blooming since about January, so no surprise here. It’s great creeping ground cover that will take shade or sun.
Rue Anemone (Thalictrum thalictroides) has such a tiny but beautiful flower.
Coral Honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens) is starting to put on some amazing new growth, and now flowers! Note the interesting fused leaves just below the blooms. Just to be clear: this is a native plant, Japanese Honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica) is not native and will start to resemble kudza in its manner if you plant it around here.
Yellowroot (Xanthorhiza simplicissima) has a unique Latin name, and is similarly confusing in other respects. It’s the only member of its genus, it reproduces asexually through dense, fibrous, yellow roots, and sexually through these tiny brownish-yellow flowers. I haven’t been able to find much on who actually pollinates the flowers, but I saw a bunch of gnats or tiny flies hovering around last night.
There’s my attempt to document a pollinator for this flower. Entymologists have at it.
They really are beautiful little flowers.
I noticed Yellow Jessamine (Gelsemium sempervirens) blooming all around the farm while on a walk yesterday. We’ll have to get some cuttings from our resident vines.
Down in the creek area the fiddleheads are popping up everywhere.
Here’s to the last freeze.