Spring Trees - 2015

Part of the joy of spring is watching the plants unfurl from winter. I particularly like the trees and shrubs because the leaves come out in all kinds of ways…in clumps…as single buds...folded…coiled…pleated. I’ve collected a number of pictures of the new leaves over the past few weeks and have put together the slideshow below. Enjoy!

Native Plants for the Yard

I was motivated by the lecture on native plants in the Master Naturalist class to augment the plantings around my house with some new additions. This past weekend was the perfect time to do it: there were native plants on sale and for free at the Howard County GreenFest on Saturday and the weather was good for planting on Sunday.

I replaced two bushes that had died in the front of our house with Ninebark. Hopefully they will fill in the space between the irises I planted last year to partially cover the void the old bushes had left.

Under the deck where there is too much shade for the grass to grow well, I planted two Christmas ferns. Both of the plants have old green fronds that made it through the winter and fiddleheads that are emerging now. It seems like they unfurled a bit over Saturday night while they were waiting in their pots on our deck to be planted in the ground. If these ferns do well, maybe they will propagate or maybe I’ll just plant a few more every year until I get some greenery under the deck again.

In the back of our yard where the grass is not growing well at the edge of the forest, I planted 4 understory trees: 2 spicebush, a sassafras, and a witch hazel. I will probably have to put a small fence around the area to keep the deer away from them for a few years. They are very small. The picture is of one of the spicebush plants; do you see the little green leaves?

Over the next few years, I’ll continue to extend the forest into our yard by a few feet every year. It is very easy to rake all the fall leaves to the part of the yard I want to ‘give back’ to the forest and then plant a small tree or bush in the area the next spring. I am still trying to decide if I want to plant winterberry somewhere in the yard this season or wait until next spring to plant it in the area reclaimed by the forest next fall.