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Native Plants

Bladdernut

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Bladdernut Flowers
Bladdernut Flowers

Bladdernut. I am convinced this plant has not made it into the landscape trade and into more backyards because of its name. Who wants to ask the garden center professional for Bladdernut? Who wants to answer when their friend asks “what is that interesting flowering shrub?”, “Oh that? It’s Bladdernut”. Other plants with less than pretty common names have made it into plant catalogs by sporting tags with their {{gasp}} scientific names or a new less offensive common name. Think of Tradescantia. Many catalogs market the Spiderwort as Tradescantia or have even created an entirely new common name with more marketing power: Spider Lily.  Similar stories abound. Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa) has become the gardener-friendly sounding Butterfly Flower or Butterfly Milkweed. One of my favorite spring blooms, the Liverwort, is more commonly available as its scientific name Hepatica. (Wort, you may be interested to know, is the old English term for plant. Often plants were names for the problems they would solve – Liverwort = Liver problems, Spiderwort = curing spider bite.) I think it’s time for a name make-over for the Bladdernut. What can we call it to get it into more backyards?

Liverwort (Hepatica americana)
Spiderwort (Tradescantia virginiana)
Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa)

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Native Plants

Violets

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One of the many violet color variations.

Once again I find myself on my local rail-trail. I am trying to get my heart-rate up so this meander will count as some form of exercise, but I keep stopping to look very closely at tiny little wildflowers blooming everywhere. It is truly like I stepped into a jewelry box. Virginia Bluebells coat the hillside in blues and pinks. White saxifrage, rue anemone and Dutchman’s britches dot the trailsides like scattered pearls. Various shades of jade and emerald are starting to appear on gray branches. The creek along the trail, very high after all these rains, slithers through the color like a gold chain. I should just go to a boring track, who can focus on fitness with all this beauty around?  Each time I squat down to investigate, that’s a rep…right? Today I am enamored by the violet. If I am going to take the jewelry box analogy just a little too far…these are the amethysts.

Smooth Yellow Violet (Viola pennsylvanica)
Striped Cream Violet (Viola striata)
Sweet White Violet (Viola blanda)
Common Blue Violet (Viola sororia)
Pale Early Violet (Viola affinis)
Pale Blue Violet

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Foreign Plants in Local Nature, Plants on the Move, Road Trip!

Bradford Pears and Mangroves

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Flowers and emerging leaves of Bradford Pear
Flowers and emerging leaves of Bradford Pear

Road trip! I love a good road trip, and even not good road trips are fun. I am a “it’s the journey, not the destination” type of person, so no matter how terrific the final destination may be, I look forward with equal anticipation to the adventure of just getting there (and back!).  And while my philosophy even extends to plane travel (I try to watch the happenings like watching a documentary on TV, trying to learn something from the experience, or at the very least amuse myself.) I really, really enjoy a good old, fashioned road trip. A snacks on the passenger seat, kayak on the roof, taking GPS directions only as suggestions, radio up loud, windows down, let’s see where I wind up road trip.

This road trip I am heading down to the west coast of Florida. I have to admit, Florida isn’t one of my favorite states. Not enough snow or fall color for my liking. But it turns out my parents love it there and have recently decided to call it home.  They live on the water now and I love to paddle, so I threw my boat on the car, packed up too much stuff, and hit the road.  Spring was just starting to show its face when I was leaving. As I headed south, spring progressed as my miles increased. Soon I was seeing Bradford Pears (Pyrus calleryana) in full bloom. Everywhere. EVERYWHERE.

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Define Interesting, Native Plants, Nature's Landscape Inspiration

Spicebush

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Spicebush brightens up an early spring forest.
Spicebush brightens up an early spring forest.

If I had 100 acres of my very own to garden in any way I wanted…I might plant a forsythia. I dabble in cut flower arrangements and there is something so hopeful and encouraging about a pretty vase with a tall forced branch or two of forsythia in full bloom in February on your toilet tank. (Yes, toilet tank. My first floral design teacher told me nothing says “class” like flowers in the bathroom and that has stuck with me through the years). But I would only plant forsythia if I had that much space. And I don’t. Forsythia has a characteristic that I do not tolerate in my gardens; 1 season of interest. There’s no room in my yard for a plant that is only interesting for a couple weeks.

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Define Interesting, Native Plants, Nature's Landscape Inspiration

Beech

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Buds of the young beech tree protected by leaves hanging on through the winter.
Buds of the young beech tree protected by leaves hanging on through the winter.

Once again I am searching for signs of Spring. It is a rainy day and I am hiking in a park close to home. Like a lot of you, I’m sure, I am a sucker for woodland wildflowers. I get so excited when I find them. I am constantly on high alert for tiny spots of yellow, purple and even white breaking up the monotony of the leafy forest floor. But on this dreary day, there are no bright spots. Not one! The last of the snow hasn’t cleared from the shady spots and ice is still on the reservoir. So I lift my gaze from the ground to take a closer look at what is right in front of me.

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Nature's Landscape Inspiration

Bear’s Breeches

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Bear's Breeches (Acanthus spinosus)
Bear’s Breeches (Acanthus spinosus)

I coveted these fascinating plants the entire length of my summer high school garden center job. I mean they were BOLD in your face plants, like nothing I had seen. I wanted a bunch of them. I envisioned a portion of the space my parents let me garden in the yard laced with these spiny, spiky monsters. But they were expensive. I couldn’t afford one. So as soon as I got my first real job and my very first yard, I bought one of these and planted in the rich garden soil that had been trucked in by the previous owner to grow lawn.  I didn’t research this plant, I was smitten with its architecture, I was instantly taken in by the plant. I brought it home and planted it in my garden and watched it slowly die.

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Native Plants, Plants on the Move

Witch Hazels

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Hamamelis x intermedia 'Rubin' Seed Capsule and Flowers
Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Rubin’ Seed Capsule and Flowers

Some of the most fascinating things you learn by accident. That is how I became aware of the forces of the Witch Hazel. I was taking a botanical illustration class at the Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania and had an assignment to collect some botanical materials to draw in the next class. Being fall, I collected crunchy leaves, seed pods and acorns. I placed everything in a small cardboard box on top of the TV where they would stay, and I wouldn’t lose them, until next class. A couple evenings later I am settling in for the night, curled up in a chair watching what my dad calls “the idiot box”. During a lull in the program I hear a noise. A faint tap. What in the world?

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Native Plants

Skunk Cabbage

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Skunk Cabbage ‘flowers’

If you aren’t looking where you are going in the early spring muck, you may miss these wonders. As I was hiking this weekend, I admit, I stepped on one of these flowers camouflaged among the fallen leaves and reflective puddles of melting snow. To me, seeing these means spring is on its way. This year, they are blooming a little bit later than their typical February debut, but even these curiosities couldn’t get themselves out from underneath the thick blanket mother nature provided this winter. A little bit of snow is no challenge for these native perennials, in fact, like fancy ski resort walkways (so you don’t slip getting to the lodge for that refreshing beverage), they have their own internal snow melting system. Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) creates its own heat! Know who else does this, a process also known as thermogenesis? People, mammals. Yes, here we have a plant that creates its own heat, like we do. Well, not exactly like we do. But, this blog isn’t about plants that make their own warmth, it’s about plants that move and how they move. So why the skunk cabbage? Two reasons.

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Foreign Plants in Local Nature

Crocus

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Crocus

Not gonna lie – I was excited to see these little ones blooming along the Perkiomen Trail. I took this photo Tuesday March 11, 2014 while on a 6 mile walk on this 20 mile rail trail in Southeast Pennsylvania. Anyone who knows me knows I love winter and snow. We all know how snowy it has been in the northeast and mid atlantic. I have snowboarded, snow tubed, snow shoed and even turned my back deck steps into a sledding track, but I am running out of things to do in the snow. I am ready to plant my peas. I am ready to sift compost. I am ready for the skunk cabbage, which should be up already around me but isn’t yet. So when I saw these petite beauties blooming along the trail, I giggled and did a little dance (really!). Honey bees were as excited as me, floating in and out of pollen-filled flower after flower, in this sunny little haven. Ah, signs of spring, signs of life, signs of what’s next.

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