Buds: Springs Yet To Come
Buds, to use strict botanic terminology, are those little bumps on the ends of twigs that no one ever notices. Until one fine day, when the little bumps burst open and reveal the leaves and blossoms of spring that we’ve all been longing for. As miraculous as a chick hatching out of its shell. It’s been a long hard winter, and everyone’s delighted to see the new green leaves bursting forth on the branches—the leaves of this spring. But when did the buds start incubating those baby leaves? Last spring, a full year ago. At the base of each and every leaf on each and every tree, a tiny speck...
Read MoreEver Green
The red and orange and gold leaves are gone, turned to crumpled brown paper. Now, in the dark days of winter, the evergreen trees come into their own. They’ve been there all along, of course, hidden by autumn’s lavish foliage. Now the green shines amid the bare branches. The spruces create a geometric shape, a long, narrow triangle against the skyline. Pines are ragged, unsymmetrical, lovably awkward. On north-facing slopes, graceful hemlocks shade the hillside. Sometimes the trees are frosted by snow, sometimes they sing in the wind. But the main thing about evergreens is that they’re...
Read MoreWillow: Graceful Gold
An empty parking lot behind the Salvation Army in Glenville, NY. Blacktop edged with flattened plastic water bottles and tattered plastic bags. Not exactly a destination spot. Not the sort of place you expect to find beauty. Yet there it is. A willow tree–a work of art. Long graceful branches, slender leaves as yellow as lemons. The last trace of autumn gold before the snow comes to bury it. There are many species of willows–which one is this? Not sure. Not a weeping willow–those are easy to identify—can’t miss those long flowing tresses. This is one of the...
Read MoreLeaf Miner: An Artist’s Journey
The Highlights Foundation in Boyds Mills, PA. An oasis of calm and creativity, a place for writers and illustrators to work. In between revising chapters and tinkering with adjectives, I took a walk along one of the woodland trails, and discovered that an artist had been this way before me. Not an illustrator of children’s books; an illustrator of leaves. It looks as though some demented graffiti artist has been spray-painting leaves in crazy, random patterns. But this botanical doodling is the work of an insect called a leaf miner. There are hundreds of species of leaf miners, which...
Read MorePoison Ivy: Early Color
It’s summer, it’s warm and sunny and the leaves are all green and blowing in the warm breeze, and school is out and life is good and whoa! What’s that? A red leaf. It’s like seeing a “Back-to-School Sale!” sign in the mall. A sudden warning that the summer has once more fled away and fall is imminent. But it’s not a whole tree going gold or scarlet; that happens later, in fall, right? It’s not October yet. This is just a warning shot—a single leaf here, a branch there. A vine suddenly goes red as a traffic light, bringing you up short. Why, though? Why do some plants abruptly turn bright...
Read MoreIs Poison Ivy Shiny?
True or false? You can always spot poison ivy because it’s shiny. True, sometimes, especially in spring. False, most of the time.
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