Witch Hazel: Frozen Sweetness
A little cabin in the woods. Very, very Thoreau. A nice place to hide out and write. Last week I revelled in a writers’ retreat at the Highlights Foundation in Boyds Mills, PA. Anyway, outside my cabin was a gorgeous bush in full bloom. Covered with flowers. What, you don’t see it? Right here. A witch hazel bush. A native species–the best kind for landscaping. In full bloom. Now if witch hazel bloomed in May, it would be totally overlooked by every person walking past, and more to the point, overlooked by any and all pollinators. But the fact that it blooms so ridiculously late in the...
Read MoreAmerican Beech: Don’t Know When to Quit
Honesdale, PA. A day of bright sun at the Highlights Foundation at Boyds Mills, a wonderful writers’ retreat. Sunny and clear, but cold. Almost winter now. The leaves are all off the trees. The winter is coming, the branches are stark and bare. Or not. The leaves of these elegant gray trees just don’t know when it’s time to quit. American Beech, Fagus grandifolia. Why? Like most nature questions,this one has as many answers as there are websites. The trait of keeping leaves after they’re dead is called marcescence. (A word that is surely in the finals of all spelling-bees.)...
Read MoreTrees: Beautiful Bones
I love November. Bare, brown, sparse, uncluttered. The gorgeous October foliage is long gone, crumpled underfoot. As one of my favorite writers, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, said, “Now let us see the bones, the beautiful bones of the trees.” The pattern of branches against the sky is a thing beloved of artists and photographers. Severe simple beauty. But the pattern isn’t accidental. It’s filled with purpose. Every inch of branch and twig grew as it did for a reason. Sun. A tree can’t live without sun to power its inner food-factory. So it has to expend a lot of energy to grow structures that hold...
Read MoreGuest Photographer Zach Baldwin
Many thanks to Zach Baldwin for this lovely photograph. The warm reds and browns of an autumn day. The sharp narrow beak on this bird probably isn’t good for eating these big berries–I suppose the bird (a warbler?) was taking shelter here. (And I have no idea what the shrub is!!)
Read MoreCommon Mullein: The Vertical Garden
The Schoharie Creek, at the bridge in Burtonsville, NY. So mild-mannered now, a calm little rural river minding its own business. But every now and then this quiet stream goes berserk and floods like crazy, toppling trees and destroying houses. They built this new bridge high for a reason. Anyway, here’s the old bridge, or at least the remains of it. I’m not sure if it washed away in a flood many years ago, or if it was dismantled when they build the new bridge. But the remnants of the stonework have become a really interesting place to look for plants. A vertical garden. The...
Read MoreGoldenrod: Fill Up the Feeders
So where’s the seed already? The birds are waiting… (Thanks to Wells Horton for this lovely photo of an impatient customer.) http://wells-horton.smugmug.com/) Personally, I don’t do bird feeders. My resident birder does, but not me. I’m just too darn lazy to get out there on a cold morning and lug pounds of sunflower seed and do battle with the squirrels. I prefer to let someone else do the work. Like the goldenrod plants. At the edge of my yard is a meadow full of birdseed. Goldenrod, no longer golden but brown and crisp. A few asters are in there, too, and grasses...
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