Daffodils and Wildflowers

You may remember last autumn I wrote about digging up the daffodil bulbs at the front of the house and then replanting them at the back along the edge of the woods.  It was a huge success.   

Daffodils at the edge of the woods on a southeast facing hill.  I love how the late afternoon sun shines through the still-bare branches of the trees to illuminate the blossoms from behind.

View from the woods toward our neighbors' house a week or so after the previous photo.

View toward "The Grove", a large house owned by Assisi Heights Convent.

 I had dug up about 8 bushells of bulbs from the front to move to the back.  I though I had recovered at least 80% of them, but look at was is left in the front!  I think I will let them stay where they are.  :-)  I seem to have plenty at the edge of the woods.

Lots of bulbs were still in the bed at the front of the house.  They are such a welcomed sight in early spring.

The bumblebees were all over them.

They just glow in the spring sunshine.

There have been lots of wildflowers out, too. I was too late to catch the bloodroot flower. 

The lovely single leaf of the bloodroot plant, one of my favorite wildflowers.

Last spring I looked high and low for trout lilies in bloom, but did not find a single flower.  I did find a seed head late in the fall, but that was it.  This spring I found quite a few with flowers. 

These are the white trout lilies.  They also come in yellow.

These lilies mostly propagate vegetatively. The first year plants have a single leaf. Older plants have 2 leaves and may flower.

If you look in the background, you can see that the forest floor is almost a uniform carpet of trout lilies.

Mixed in with the trout lilies are loads of blue violets.

The ramps are doing well.  Unlike their European relative, rampsons, they will not flower until after the leaves have died back.

Some of the jack-in-the-pulpits have a dark spathe that surrounds the spadix, and others have green spathes.  Not sure what the difference is.

These early woodland wildflowers emerge long before the trees begin to leaf out. They get in almost an entire year's worth of growth in the weeks before they get shaded by the trees. Their foliage often dies back even though flowers and seed heads develop and mature in the later months of summer. They rely on energy stored in corms, bulbs, and roots.

This photo of the jack-in-the-pulpit is from 2008.  It shows the very colorful developing seeds and exposed surface of the spadix where the seeds have fallen off.

Amazingly beautiful, isn't it? 

Is it spring yet?

Well, the emergence of the Great Southern Brood of periodic cicadas that I featured in my last post has made headlines here, here, and here.  But there were other things of interest happening outside too.  One of my favorite small trees, the Grancy Greybeard, (aka Fringe Tree, Old Man's Beard, Chionanthus virginicus) was in bloom in my Mother's back yard. 

 When we moved to Minnesota 18 years ago, we brought a seedling with us.  It has survived and even blooms here.  It stays small because it gets severely "pruned" by deer each winter; of course the shorter growing season also comes in to play. 

 Yes, those ~3 foot tall sticks are the Grancy Greybeard.  The photo of the flowers in Georgia was taken 3 weeks ago and the photos above and below of this one in MN were taken just minutes ago!  That is how delayed our spring is relative to that in Georgia - I would guess at least 6 weeks, maybe 8.  You can see the Lily of the Valley leaves around the base of the Grancy Greybeard and also the first new leaves of Christmas fern unfurling.

So far our Grancy Greybeard only has green buds showing with the promise of good things to come.

I have no idea what this plant is.

 It is a vine of some sort that was growing wild at the back of a neighbor's yard.  A very pretty flower, whatever it is.


There were also some weeds/wildflowers (depending on your point of view) in Mother's front lawn. 

 I'm glad I took these shots when I did because the next day they were mowed down.  :-(

This Scotch Broom (Cytisus scoparius ) was also in the neighbor's yard.  As an invading, non-native species, it is considered a noxious weed.  It was introduced from Europe in the 1800s.  Here in the yard, it behaves itself fairly well and adds some welcomed color in the spring.

Meanwhile back here in MN, there are more signs of spring that lend themselves to another posting.  Here is a taste of things to come ...

Ramps

Jack-in-the-pulpit

Ostrich plume ferns