Wednesday Woodland Path Walk!

Mertensia virginica - Virginia Bluebells.

Virginia Bluebell is a showy, early spring

wildflower found through most of the

 eastern United States. They have dense

 clusters of pink flower buds that open

up to blue flowers!

Virginia Bluebells are so pretty!

 Like many of the woodland plants I am sharing with you today, they remind me of my spring hikes through the woods of New England where I grew up. When I started my path, my goal was to create an experience similiar to the hikes I would take. Since I tended to spend most of the time with my head looking down so I wouldn't trip, I discovered many of my favorite wildflowers! I loved nothing more than to turn a corner and be greeted with a tiny wildflower next to a rock or at the base of a tree!

That's how I tried to plant along my path, planting a little pocket of plants here and there next to rocks, trees and other little natural features I found in my little patch of woods!

 Uvularia sessilifolia - Sessileleaf Bellwort,

 Wild Oats

.Blooms Early- to mid-spring

I like to call these little plants Wild Oats, the color of their hanging bells are a light yellow reminding of the color of oats. I believe these were native to my woods and I just transplanted them around different areas.

Now they have grown into large patches, showing off their delicate little bells. One might miss them since they are so slender and their bells hang below their leaf, but as a patch of them they are very charming!

Wild Cherry Blossoms

My Husband and I buy native seedlings
every year from our County Agricultural Extension Agency.
They offer a variety of native flowering trees and evergreens to choose from each year. I believe this is one of the wild cherry seedlings that is now 8' tall! They are pretty and provide fruit for the birds later in the season.

Erythronium americanum - Trout Lily; Dogtooth Violet.

Trout lily is one of the early spring wildflowers.



Dog Tooth Violet or Trout Lily



Yellow Dog Tooth Violets bring me back to my childhood backyard where they grew in abundance along a stream we had flowing through our woods. I would sit along the stream in my teenage years and watch their beautiful flowers blow in the breeze. Their spotted green and brown leaves tightly covered this little mound along the bank and engulfed a large boulder that I would sit on and think about life. It was a nice place to escape the crazy life of a teen!!

 So I had to have them along my path too! However, after 26 years they are only now beginning to bloom! For several years I was surprised by one single flower amongst a sea of leaves! This year I was surprised to actually have four beautiful yellow flowers blooming! Woodland gardening takes a lot of patience - but like I have said before, it is so worth the wait!

Stylophorum diphyllum - Wood Poppy, Celandine Poppy.

A beautiful, yellow, early spring wildflower.

This gorgeous Celandine Poppy is only one of hundreds

 that bloom along my path.

I had purchased one little plant from Bowman Gardens

in PA, and thought it had died.

A year or two later, the foliage emerged, but no flower.

 However, once it began flowering in the coming years, it has spread to the point that I am passing plants along to neighbors or to who ever would like one!!

They do create beautiful drifts of yellow flowers, are native, and bloom for along time!  So, I think I'll let them stay!:-)

  Claytonia virginica - Virginia Spring Beau nty,

 Narrow-leaved Spring Beauty.

 Early spring wildflower that can be 4 to 12 inches tall. Very similar to

 Carolina Spring Beauty - C. caroliniana - with the primary differentiator

being the leaf shape. It is protected in Massachusetts, New Jersey,

and Rhode Island as an endangered or historical species,

according to the USDA Plants Database.

While writing this, I actually learned something

 I didn't know about Spring Beauties. I have to make a correction on last weeks walk when I showed a picture of Spring Beauties. I knew that the two patches of spring beauties I had along my path had the same flower but different leaves, however, I never took the time to look into why! Now I know that the picture above is the true Virginia Spring Beauties and the picture last week is actually the Carolina Spring Beauties! They are both beautiful, very delicate, very similar flower, but the difference in leaves was the give away!! I also didn't know that it is an endangered species. I am thrilled my little plants are happily spreading along my path! I don't know if they were endangered years ago when I first planted them but I always stress to everyone how important it is to buy wildflowers from a reputable source that grows them and doesn't take them from the wild! 





This is a picture of the Carolina Spring Beauties and White Common
Violets that happily grow this large rock.

 

Mourning Doves



As I was strolling along taking pictures I had two mourning doves keeping an eye on me. I love hearing their owl type sounds that they make, in fact when we first moved into this house I thought I was hearing an owl!! The joke was on me, when I put up my bird feeders and realized that the sound was coming from them!  I couldn't believe I was fooled!! I still love them anyway and enjoy having them around to keep me company!
 



There was also a lot of commotion going on briefly in my neighbors tree that is close to our property. I think some mating was going on!!  It was hard for me to identify what type of hawks they were but my guess was either cooper hawks or possibly the broad shouldered hawks that have recently nested nearby for the last two years! So, I will probably be seeing a few more of them later in the spring!

A section of my woodland path filling in with spring plants. 

The squirrels have been chasing each other around the trees and the male cardinals have been sweetly feeding their female sweethearts from the bird feeders. It's spring!

Love is in the air!!!

See you next week!

Tracey :-)



 

Spring is Here - Come Take a Walk With Me!



 Hellebores are one of the earliest flowers to greet you in the very early spring.

Here in NJ there are few woodland flowers that are evergreen.  This year we are having record blooms!

They are also known as Christmas Rose or Lenten Rose because of their resemblance of a wild rose and they often bloom around Lent. Deer won't touch the Many of the Hellebores are toxic if ingested. 

 

I think spring IS finally here!

 If you read my earlier post on Groundhogs day, I think

 Long Island's Groundhog 'Chuck' had the winning prediction - spring is here!

 My woodland path is beginning to wake up from this mild winter 

and becoming alive with spring flowers! I get so excited each spring when I can finally go outside and be surprised each day by another emerging plant, or even better---a flower!

Spring Beauties are ephemerals that bloom in the spring and then die back by the summer.
 Mine are in full bloom along my path. Sensitive to light conditions, Spring Beauties
will close up their flowers on a cloudy day and at night, then cheerfully open up
for you on a sunny day!

  

With camera in hand and sometimes my coffee too,

 I love to go out each day and take pictures of the nature that surrounds me. In the spring, my woods are filled with ephemerals (wondering how to pronounce that? i-ˈfem-rəls) which are plants that grow, flower, and die in a few days.


Many of the plants I'm sharing with you today are ephemerals. (Spring Beauties, Dutchman's Breeches,
Glories of the Snow, Winter Aconite, and Bloodroot)





 Dutchman's Breeches are another spring ephemeral woodland plant that has striking
white flowers that look like little britches turned upside down! One of my favorites! 
Soon Violets and Trilliums will be replacing these unique flowers as they die back until next spring!





These beautiful purple/blue Sharp Lobed Hepaticas
and the white Round lobed Hepaticas (below) grow to about 4"-6" ht.
Butterflies, moths, bees, and beetles are some of the known pollinators. 

 



These are the white Round Lobed Hepaticas.
 Both Hepaticas grow in nice little clumps and flower before their
 new leaves emerge from the ground. They retain many of their leaves
 through out the winter and are quickly replaced
as the new foliage unfolds.



Unfortunately, this winter we had to take down one of my favorite trees. It was an amazing Tulip Tree that was estimated to be 135' to 150' tall! Needless to say, we got a lot of wood and mulch from this beloved tree!

 Our Tulip Tree that had been taken down.

 We were able to replenish the mulch on our entire woodland path! Being so early in the season, we decided to bring in several truck loads of shredded mulch from our local recycling center to cover all the plant beds around our house and along the path! Our woods never looked so good in February.

Our newly mulched woodland path. 

Now its toward the end of March and each day I'm surprised with new plants popping through all that luscious dark brown mulch!



 This is a little sitting area along our path. The bench sits between two very large black
walnut trees.. The blue Glories of the Snow and white Dutchman's Breeches surround the rock.
  When they die back later in the spring, Sweet Woodruff, Trilliums and Bleeding Hearts
will take over.

 

 Glory of the Snow - Beautiful blue flowering spring bulbs that have naturalized
through out my yard and woods. They create a beautiful blue carpet of flowers
 right after my white Snowdrops are finished blooming.





 Winter Aconite -  Cute little yellow flowers that grow 1-2".
 They are will die back once the tree canopy gets dense by late spring.
All parts of this plant are poisonous.




 Bloodroot - Amazing little woodland plants that have beautiful white
 daisy like flowers. I love the way their one large leaf wraps around their stems
 while they are in flower, and then unfurl once the flower fades..
. They get their name because they store sap in an orange red rhizome
 below the soil. Eventually they will grow into large colonies!

I have been adding to this woodland path for about 26 years now.
 It has been a real labor of love! Not everyone weeds their woods (twice a year) so these native gems can grow and thrive! Most have been purchased from places that have propagated them from seed - and not collected from the wild. When starting these plants from seeds it can take YEARS before I will get a flower! But it is so worth it when I finally look down and see that very first bloom! There is just something so enchanting about a wildflower.....I've been in love with them since I was a child!

I hope you enjoyed our first walk and become a wildflower enthusiast too! I'd love to hear about your plants, any questions I can help you with, or just say hi!

My woodland path walks will be on Wednesdays! I hope you can join me! :-)

Tracey