BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 18 Apr 20 - 07:00 AM

We had our first swallows (3 of them) of the year yesterday, just about on the usual timing. They could have been here for a couple of days but I've not been outside the garden until I had to go to collect some shopping.

They usually are first seen by a large farming shed at the bottom of our track as that is where they nest each year.

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Apr 20 - 04:48 PM

The people in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Canada are probably more starved for spring than those of us who have already had a taste.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Apr 20 - 09:03 AM

The red and orange Azalis are coming out. I have a rare scented Azalea that is by the front door.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: leeneia
Date: 13 Apr 20 - 11:18 AM

Spring arrived in Missouri last week, but left after two days. It was lovely and warm, then temperatures went back to the 50's by day and 30's by night. Yesterday we went out to pick up BBQ, and I had to wear gloves.

Nonetheless, the daffodils have come and gone, the tulips are up, and my yard is sprinkled with purple and white violets.

I believe there were tornadoes in Arkansas yesterday. A terrible side-effect of spring.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: EBarnacle
Date: 12 Apr 20 - 12:17 AM

It's officially Spring. Shad are running on the Delaware..

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: keberoxu
Date: 11 Apr 20 - 11:39 AM

I see buds on some of the bare trees hereabouts.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: EBarnacle
Date: 10 Apr 20 - 09:04 PM

I dunno,Spring isn't really here until the ocean and the rivers warm up to the point where the shad begin their spawning run--a couple of weeks to go.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Apr 20 - 05:57 AM

Howlng at the moon at 8 PM is becoming a primal way of making our presnce known. It started in Colorado.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Senoufou
Date: 09 Apr 20 - 04:06 AM

We've had a succession of warm, sunny days and yesterday I saw ladybirds, bumble bees, an orange-tip butterfly and a red admiral one, but my neighbour-over-the-road said she's found no end of lily beetles in her tubs. She made me smile as she was most indignant that "Two of them were having sex!!!" She squashed them in flagrante delicto.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: keberoxu
Date: 08 Apr 20 - 09:36 PM

And I saw my first itty-bitty mosquito.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Apr 20 - 11:04 PM

Saw my first ladybird of the year.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Apr 20 - 10:12 PM

The full moon is certainly majestic tonight against a blue black sky and white clouds of unusual beauty framed by the soundtrack of spring peepers. Its warm with see through trees and might reach 80 tommorrow.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: peteglasgow
Date: 07 Apr 20 - 05:33 PM

i'm just back in the house from taking our lurcher, Rosa, out for her late piss and shite. i live just along from dorothy and william wordsworth's childhood home and where we go is between the back wall of their garden and the river derwent in cockermouth, cumbria. the moon is so bright tonight = i don't think i have ever seen my shadow so dark and well-defined. the daffodils at the back of the wordsworths' are not in in fact 'a host of golden' tonight, they are many, tall and white, with a shadow for each on the grass. and a couple of brightly glistening turds - now safely deposited in william wordsworth's dog shit bin. i do this most nights - me, the dog, the shite, the house and the river. the moon doesn't always show up and the daffodils will soon be gone. and it won't be as quiet as this forever....i hope

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Charmion
Date: 07 Apr 20 - 09:58 AM

My lavender seedling survived the winter and the oregano is coming up. The first shoots of chives are peeping through the winter blanket of fallen maple leaves, and the primula is in full yellow bloom.

The hyacinths are budding, despite rabbit aggression, and the daffs will be out by Easter. The lawn is spangled with little blue thingies that I did not plant and whose name I do not know.

The mourning doves are back, the municipal swans are out of durance vile and back on the river, and the cardinals are in a frenzy of sexy singing.

Spring is busting out all over in Stratford.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: keberoxu
Date: 06 Apr 20 - 07:19 PM

Really the first day I could go outdoors with no coat or jacket.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: keberoxu
Date: 05 Apr 20 - 07:05 PM

what do you see this year?

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Senoufou
Date: 15 Apr 17 - 09:16 AM

Oooh thanks for that Steve! I didn't know. I actually quite like the weeds in a way, but not if they're going to harbour clubroot.

Our hanging baskets and tubs are in the greenhouse to get established. They've come on tremendously in the past week, (scarlet geraniums in the tubs and purple surfinias in the baskets) But they'll need to be hardened off before we put them outside. I've known late frosts at night in April, and the wind here can be icy cold.

Saw a beautiful thrush in the garden this morning. They're quite uncommon now, so was very pleased to see it.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Apr 17 - 05:52 AM

Don't suffer Shepherd's Purse to reside in your garden if you grow brassicas, as it harbours clubroot.

I've seen a few male and female orange-tips around but no Brimstones as yet. I'll just pop outside!

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Senoufou
Date: 15 Apr 17 - 04:31 AM

ragdall, that chickadee looks rather like a coal tit. Very attractive little bird.

Our bluebells are out in the garden (British ones, NOT the brash and bullying Spanish variety). Also lily-of-the-valley, and rather a lot of Shepherd's Purse which will have to be given the boot. Alliums are on the brink of bursting forth (I plant those huge ones, called 'Globemaster')

Oak trees in our part of Norfolk (west) are now at last breaking into leaf. They're always the last. Willows all going great guns along the riverbanks. And at Wroxham (start of the Broads) about a trillion swans mugging the tourists at the outdoor cafe down by the bridge. You wouldn't believe the numbers (swans, not tourists!)

Some pretty lambs in the fields around the village. Saw a white ewe with twin black lambs. Unless she'd 'borrowed' them?

And I always know Spring is here when our lovely neighbour daubs Creocote (not Creosote, that's illegal now) all along our shared fence and it stinks. In fact, it brings on my vertigo. Hope it fades soon.

Lastly, my poor husband has begun his dreadful hay fever, due to the oil-seed rape flowers. Farmers round here seem to have gone for it in a big way this year.The fields are such a bright yellow it hurts your eyes. Bees love it, but my husband is doped up with Piriton and has gone through about 20 hankies in a few hours poor man.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: ragdall
Date: 15 Apr 17 - 02:05 AM

Two Black-capped Chickadees have been taking turns excavating a hollow in a long dead wild cherry tree in my back yard.

This one was resting on the rosebush beside their work site, which I hope will be a deterrent to predators.
https://flic.kr/p/SB5Wft

rags

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 14 Apr 17 - 02:58 AM

The mangos are now on sale in East Ham High Street. A sure sign that summer is coming.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: bbc
Date: 13 Apr 17 - 09:45 PM

Today, the daffodils are blooming in Troy, New York & I saw a Cabbage White Butterfly feeding on one! Yup, Spring's on the way!

Barbara

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: keberoxu
Date: 13 Apr 17 - 07:27 PM

We still don't have leaves on the trees.
The snow, however, is mostly gone, even those expletive-deleted frozen heaps on the curbs and in the parking lots.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Apr 17 - 07:08 PM

I was driving home from the supermarket this morning and the car radio was on. I was only half-listening, as you do sometimes, then I heard (quite likely imperfectly but I'll do my best) a poetical sort of chap, describing how he always first hears the chiffchaff on or within a couple of days of the 19th March. He described each note of the chiffchaff's song as another little nail in the coffin of winter. Now that's what I call poetry!

I've just been watching a documentary about a bloke called Geoff whose job it is to clear snow from the roofs of buildings in Yellowstone in winter to prevent the buildings from collapsing. He stood under a particularly menacing-looking cornice on one roof, pointed out with genuine appreciation the intricate beauty of the snow layers that indicated the many windstorms of the winter, then told us with relish that he couldn't wait to destroy that cornice. Geoff is my kind of feller! Geoff, sorry if you're really Jeff!

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Joe_F
Date: 06 Apr 17 - 05:57 PM

A bluebird comes tenderly up to alight
And fronts the wind to unruffle a plume,
His song so pitched as not to excite
A single flower as yet to bloom.
It is snowing a flake, and he half knew
Winter was only playing possum.
Except in color he isn't blue,
But he wouldn't advise a thing to blossom.

-- Robert Frost

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: keberoxu
Date: 06 Apr 17 - 02:01 PM

It is raining cats and dogs here, in Massachusetts.
I'm just thankful that it is above freezing.

Subject: RE: BS: Blatant! Signs of Spring - Texas
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Apr 08 - 08:36 AM

We're not long looking at modest tidbits of color and tiny green leaves poking out, Texas spring is now like a great painted floozy, spread out all over the place for everyone to see. Nothing "early" about this place any more!

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: gnu
Date: 25 Apr 08 - 05:23 AM

Oops... been a while since I said I am in Southeastern New Brunswick, Canada.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: gnu
Date: 25 Apr 08 - 05:22 AM

My tulips were about to bloom. We had sunny days up to 20C. It's white this morning... but forecast to clear and reach 5C this afternoon.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Apr 08 - 05:34 PM

Yep, SRS, that's it... The Wild Flower book also id's it as a "Putty Root Orchid"... Pretty nice specimen... Not to fear... We will keep alive and well... Actually we do ver well with most wild flowers... If ya' just look around where you find them and duplicate their surroundings it's amazing how well that transplant...

Last year I found a white trilium about two miles back in the woods and it has come up... No bloom as yet but I didn't find it until the middle of May last year when it was in bloom... Kinda excited to have it come back....

Our Va. Blue Bells self seeded and are all over the woods... As is a dwarf dafodil which only come up about 5 inches and makes a flower about the size of a nickle... Very sweet little plant...

Thanks fir looking that orchid up, SRS... 1788??? My, my, my...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Apr 08 - 05:08 PM

Is this the leaf? Aplectrum hyemale? Though it comes from a State of Missouri site, the photo caption says it was taken in Brown Summit, NC. Also calls it "Putty Root Orchid" (such an inelegant name!) Ooooo--identified in 1788--here.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Apr 08 - 04:59 PM

I kinda thought you might find that information about your orchid. Taking it home with you to plant in the yard was popular when I started botanizing, but is frowned upon now. I stick with garden-variety transplants. Orchids are also very fussy about where they grow and what they grow in. Good luck keeping it going.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Apr 08 - 03:43 PM

Ummmm, the orchid I found is called "Adam 'n Eve" and is considered "very rare", according to oue Va. Wild Flowers book... It also says not to move them...

Opps...

And I was right... The leaf is the leaf and there is a bloom... We'll see...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Apr 08 - 02:58 PM

That sounds like a great walk, Bobert! I've gone hiking in the woods around here with a trowel and bucket as well. I have a native prickly pear cactus in the yard (taken before the bulldozed the field where they grew), and a gorgeous large spiderwort I dug up five years ago that comes back every year. I'd like to find another one, but haven't so far. (My neighbor had one, but he tilled it in before I could get to it.)

I also have a wild garlic around the yard that I first dug up in the woods. It's a hard-neck variety that no doubt escaped from a garden a long time ago. It looks like a leek when it is full-size, and I've been tempted to treat it that way. Not ever having actually cooked leeks, I guess I should start at the grocery store and see how they work out, then test the garlic plants. (Any suggestions? Am I the only one who has had this idea?)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: gnu
Date: 14 Apr 08 - 06:56 AM

Our dusting of snow should melt by noon. It IS spring!

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Rumncoke
Date: 13 Apr 08 - 09:28 PM

In February I was posting that we hadn't had snow for over a decade, here on the south coast of England right by the sea - so just to spite me it snowed twice last week - nothing much, just nasty cold and a covering that soon melted.

It was sad to see the snow on the plum blossom, though very beautiful too.

Anne

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: black walnut
Date: 13 Apr 08 - 09:10 PM

When it was up to 4 degrees (C) this afternoon (brrrr) we went outside and cut down some of fall's leftovers to make room for this year's new growth. Nice to see tulip leaves struggling upward, as well as a few other things. After swabbing - er, sweeping the deck, a chipmunk came out to help clean up some spilled birdseed. Awwww.....

~b.w.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Apr 08 - 12:35 PM

Well, yesterday was gorgeous so I loaded up my small knapsack with some water, several plastic bags and a knife, grabbed my 410/22 rifle (see bear story) fired up the Kubota and headed back into the woods to hunt the elusive morelle mushrooms...

Well, as luck would have it I found a place where Mr. Clifford told me about back 'round a mile up the loggin' road... So I left the Kabota right there in the middle of thye loggin' road, took the key out in case the bear had any thoughts of takin' it on a joy ride and headed down, down down into this valley that runs parrelel to our farm but this was way up where the springs feed the strream that runs thru our neighbors farm...

Well, it was moist in the very middle but dryer on the sides... It kinda looked like a the kinda area where wild flowers would do well so I plunked myself down in one of the dryer areas and just kinda surveyed the 30 or so feet I could see in most directions and I'm real glad I did cause...

...right next to where I had laid my knapsack I noticed an orchid... But it had no stem and the leaf was monsterously large... Like 9 inches long and absolutely beautiful so I carefully took my knife and purdy soon had a the orchid and about a 6 inch root (bulb) ball... When I get my fingers under it and pulled it out I found not one bulb but two white bulbs just a tad smaller than a golf ball... I'm not sure what kind of orchid it is but the P-Vine says they used to grow on a creek when she lived in a wooded area outside of Charlotte and the leaf is the bloom??? Sound fishy to me but I'm
just the the dumb guy...

Also dug up a couple black kohosh which were right there next to where I was sitting... We just add them to our collection...

So then my eye starting to wander and next thing ya know I spied 4 nice morelles (mergals) which are now cut, cleaned and wrapped up in a paper towel in the frig...

Drove to Charlottesville for a medical appointment on Friday which involves going over the mountain and about 3/4's the way up there on the side of US Route 33 was an entire bank of blood root in full bloom... There musta been thousands of blooms... Absolutely spectacular... Makes our little 2 foot patch of them look like nuthin'... Twin Leaf is up... Native trillium are in bloom... Larskspu is up... We have our first bleeding heart bloom... Several early azaleas are beginning to open... Oh yeah, one of our NC natives (yellow) is in full bloom...

That's it fir now...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 02:10 AM

We had quite a heavy rainstorm early in the morning on Friday but I slept through it. My various recording devices (as such) were the previously empty bird bath and a wheelbarrow--with a lot of water--and dog dishes. One canine rain gauge had been emptied, but they left the other (or most of it) so it looked like we had at least an inch of rain.

Good thing it's the weekend coming up--this is the condition I've wanted for digging up some more garden area.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Janie
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 01:47 AM

Rain! Lots of it! Probably 2 to 4 inches between yesterday and when it stops Saturday night. First, solid, soaking rain in over a year. It is gonna mess with my plans to pot things up this weekend, and may cause some minor urban flooding of roads and a basement or two, but wells, lakes, resovoirs (spelling?) etc., are recharging.

I'm grateful this April is starting out like April.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 12:28 PM

I heard a story about that, and it wasn't on April 1. :)

You can mail order the DNA snippet to add to your cultivar, but first you have to send some pretty detailed readings of the DNA of the thing you want to glow in the dark. The make the link you need and ship it back.

I heard it on NPR but I don't remember where.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 12:13 PM

Could save on electric lighting permanently instead of just one hour a year token gesture!

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Bobert
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 12:06 PM

BTW, the P-Vine is the president of the Northern Virgina Chapter of the American Azalea Society and we will be hosted the national covention next year and collectively our chapter is raising about 3000 rare hybrids from cuttings... We have about 400 in a 35X10 room on tables growing under florescent light... I'll bring a few to the "Getaway" for my gardening buds here...

BTW, part 2, our chapter has several well known hybridizers including Don Voss, Bob Stuart, Joe Klemivich and Don Hyatt...

True story: Joe Klemivich is trying to intorduce DNA of some small critter that li8ves off the Pacifis coast and glows at night... He thinks that he can hybridize an azalea that would glow at night???

Hybridizers is some very strange people....

B;~)

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Becca72
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 12:03 PM

37° and raining here in Southern Maine. At least it ain't snow! :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 11:28 AM

Rhodies and azaleas want acid soil, lots of moisture, but they don't want their feet wet. You won't find them in swamps. They probably out compete other plants with leathery leaves blocking the sun and the buildup of acid from decomposing leaves.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Bobert
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 08:31 AM

Jim Martin,

I don't think they poison the ground at all... Rhodos have vigorous fiberous root systems so my guess is that they can outfight other plants for water...

That's my guess...

Azaleas (also in the Rhoda family) do the same...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemispher
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 07:27 AM

This week I've seen bumblebees, butterflies and last night a pipistrelle, but they'll all regret it when it snows on Sunday.

eric

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemispher
From: maeve
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 06:48 AM

Our tulips are still shivering under snow, Sinsull!

Snowdrops and crocus have finally emerged, and green daffy-down-dillies are poking up through the garden debris. Cherry blossoms have been persuaded to bloom in a tall vase in the kitchen. And last night I heard the first woodcock of the season calling "Peent, peent".

Maple sap is running well, with a high sugar content. We may be able to boil down enough sap to make a year's supply for us. If, that is, we don't wind up with broken legs from falling through the deep snow in the woods!

Time for pruning our fruit trees. Time to graft new trees to sell.

Spring!

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemispher
From: Jeri
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 06:35 AM

Snowing NOW here in New Hampshire. (Consider this to be followed by a string of expletives that I'm too incensed to type) Off to drive the dog sled to work.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: gnu
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 05:23 AM

Sunny and +9C today! Yay! Snow tonight and freezing rain tomorrow. Boo.