In the Forest Shade

I stayed in the shade as much as I could for my morning at Howard Country Conservancy yesterday. The plants that are under larger trees are lush with their summer growth. The redbud pods are thick on the trees; their edges are a darker green than the paper sides where the seeds show through as small bumps. The heart shaped leaves are darker green.

The insects were active - but none of the seemed to be the biting kind.  This one seemed to be posing for me. He seems to be looking right at the camera!

The wild blackberries are still mostly red. Do you see the one ripe one in this picture?

I looked in the place I had seen jack-in-the-pulpit in the spring and was rewarded with the still green seedpod on its stalk almost hidden by the other plants that have grown up beside the path.

There's a lot of green out there!

Brookside Gardens - June 2014

We parked at Brookside Nature Center after finding the lot at the Brookside Gardens Conservatory full. On the boardwalk between the Nature Center and the Gardens, I saw wood hydrangea (image 1 in the slide show below) in bloom and the immature fruit of both May apples (image 2) and Jack-in-the-Pulpits (image 3). Both were in bloom last time I was on that path. It was greener along the boardwalk with the spring wild flowers gone to seed and the ferns unfurled.

Our walk around Brookside Gardens was truncated by the construction projects that have been starting (and not completing) over the past year and a morning wedding….but even a limited walk around Brookside has appeal. I particularly enjoyed the ivy bed around the river birches (left image above - the tiny red speck in the lower right of the picture is a hibiscus!). The gardens often have tropical plants set outside once it is warm enough. This year there seems to be a lot of taro (right image above); my daughter had talked about taro recently when she was summarizing her geology/astronomy field trip to the Big Island.

Some of the beds had been planted with clumps of dahlias and other summer flowers. Peonies (image 5) were beginning to bloom. There was a vine hydrangea that was climbing a tree (image 6), leaves that have colors other than green (image 7 and 10), fragrant roses (image 8) and lots of buds (image 9). Enjoy the little bit of Brookside slideshow below!

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - May 2014

Noticing something worth celebration each day is an easy thing for me to do. The habit of writing it down reminds me to be grateful for these and a myriad of other things in my life. This month has been full of ‘little celebrations;’ here are my top 10 for May 2014.

Daughter’s visit. What’s not to like about having a daughter around! It was a very short visit - every part was a celebration of family.

Jack-in-the-Pulpits. This was the first year I found them blooming at the forest’s edge in our yard. These plants always seem special to me because I saw them only in pictures until I moved to the east coast.

Getting seedlings planted. I got all the seedlings planted and celebrated they were all thriving (until the hail battered a couple to oblivion last week. Still - enough are growing rapidly in there pots on the deck that I am pleased with the results of my efforts to get them started early.

Wall of green. Every my I celebrate the return of the wall of green view from my office window. The tulip poplar and maple trees are through the spring greens and looking as lush always get in summer. The sycamore that I see from my kitchen window is a little later unfurling; it’s leaves will continue getting larger and larger all during the summer.

Blueberries and yogurt. It is my favorite mini-meal in May and June….a way to celebration almost every day.

Driving neighbors. I thoroughly enjoy volunteering to drive senior citizens to their appointments in my community. What a joy it is to have them stay in the community where they have lived for years!

Hiking in the forest. Spring is one of my favorite times to hike: wildflowers, not a lot of biting insects, water gurgling. It was wonderful to be outdoors after the cold and wet!

Phone conversations. I find myself celebrating the normal ebb and flow of conversation with people far away. Sometimes it is the ordinary that turns out to be a treasure.

Birdbath and iris. Every time I go by the front door of my house (either outside or inside) I glance and the view and celebrate!

Chives. Here’s to celebrating plants that just come up every year on their own….and taste wonderful in salads!

Gambrill &Cunningham Falls State Park and Catoctin Mountain Park

We made a day trip to two state parks and an area managed by the National Park Service last weekend. They were all located in Maryland not far off I-70 in central Maryland.

The first stop was Gambrill State Park. We had seen mountain laurel in bloom there about this time in May 2012 (blog post here) ….but we were too early this year. The bushes have lots of buds but none of them were open; it will be at least another week and maybe longer before the blossoms appear. The dogwood branches against the blue sky were some consolation.

Our Catoctin Mountain Park visit was a short hike back to an old still near the visitor’s center. Along the way we saw squawroot (which I was able to identify from the park’s photo gallery). It’s a non-photosynthesizing parasitic plant that draws nutrients from the roots of oak and beech trees.

There were Jack-in-the-pulpits too.

But my favorite part of the short hike was the sound of the water. The swirl of the water over the rocks - from shade to sun - was a mirror for the spring day.

I kept looking for mushrooms along the trail because there had been so many the last time I had hiked the trail. When I got back home, I checked…and discovered I posted about that hike in August 2012…so I’ll give the fungus a few months more to develop this year before I plan to hike there again.

Cunningham Falls State Park was a longer hike to a falls overlook. A new platform had been built since we were there last but it was not a perfect vantage point for falls viewing. There was a lot of water since there had been heavy rain in the days prior to our visit.

Brookside Boardwalk

There is a boardwalk between Brookside Gardens and the Brookside Nature Center. It crosses over a wet area and a small stream. Earlier this month I photographed goslings on an early-life swim in the stream. Last weekend I focused on the lush vegetation on both sides of the walkway.

It is a transition from the formal gardens to a natural area. Clearly the area has some tending to encourage the variety and density of the plants….and some of the plants are identified with small signs. It is a place to walk slowly and enjoy the delicate looking plants….the smells….the sounds of water moving through a forest. It is easy to forget that it is surrounded by dense suburbs.

The trees keep the area shady most of the day. The leaves from years past make thick mulch that the plants (jack-in-the-pulpit, cinnamon fern, and may apple to name a few) need to thrive. This year they seem particularly lush; the late winter has not harmed these low growing plants of the forest floor as much as it did the understory trees like the dogwoods.

A large tree that toppled has been left in place. Some pieces that were cut from it as part of the repair after it fell have been around long enough to have shelf fungus growing on them.

Zooming - May 2014

Spring is full of blooms.  The zoomed images from the past month include plum blossoms, dandelion flowers, a very wet tulip, and some hydrangea to add some blue…..

Maple samaras in the grass (detached before their time by browsing deer), cowslips, and jagged edge tulip….

A mushroom, a jack-in-the-pulpit, and a foraging chipmunk….

A foraging bumble bee, spores on the back of a fern frond, and the cone of a cycad….

Fiddleheads and a Venus fly trap….

The center of a dogwood flower, a peppermint color azalea, and new growth of pines.

I find that photographing makes me more observant while I am out and about….and then again when I am looking at the pictures on a larger screen once I get home. I often don’t realize the whole of what I am capturing in the field. Every zooming blog post I compile is a celebration of the technology available in modern cameras!

Jack-in-the-Pulpits

The Jack-in-the-Pulpits seem to be everywhere during the first weeks of May in our area of Maryland this year. They’ve been every place where there is thick leaf litter and not too much other forest undergrowth. I seem to notice more of the plants in recent years….either I am happening on where they grow more frequently, I am more observant, or (maybe) they are more numerous in recent years in this area.

I saw them at Brookside Gardens on 5/3 (the gardeners seem to plant them in clumps),

The Brighton Dam Azalea Garden on 5/4,

The forest behind my house on 5/6 (where I also noticed some garlic mustard plants which I immediately pulled since often those invasive plants make it impossible for the native forest undergrowth to flourish), and

The Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant on 5/9 (unfortunately I didn’t have a camera with me on that hike!).