Spring is officially here--I hope

It's getting warm enough to work in the woods a bit, so that's a good sign. Here are a few pix of some of the early wildflowers and naturalized bulbs that are blooming. In a few days, bluebells and toothwort will cascade down the hillside.

Never mind that I lost a pair of glasses on Monday when I went out to photograph the flowers--they were old ones, at least, and might turn up as I wander the woods.

There's a lot of debris on the ground from the two windstorms we've had since September. I break up the small branches and throw them around the woods. The bigger limbs I carry to the edge of the woods and pile them up until I can get to them.


I've found a couple dozen honeysuckle seedlings and a few garlic mustard sprouts, but if I keep after them, I won't have the onslaught I had to deal with when I started my woodland project 7 years ago.

Blessings abound

Cleaning windows inspires an ode to nature's bounty. The tree outside our bedroom window, a red maple, blazes like fire and casts its color into the bedroom when the sheer curtains are pulled aside. I was feeling out of sorts about having to clean the windows to install the storm windows today before it freezes next week.

Our house has many windows--lots of light pouring in at all seasons. But, there's the window cleaning. After enjoying the red maple, I made more discoveries looking out the remaining windows as I cleaned them. The squirrels are running full tilt, carrying acorns from the oak tree in front to their stashes in the quarter-acre woods. The chipmunk seems to have found a new domicile in the woods. Soon I'll put the feeders up, and the cardinals, titmice, chickadees and finches will be here in a flash. I'll enjoy them more, looking through clean windows.

Baby-sitting twice a week has subsided to one evening for a few hours. Granddaddy and I are getting pretty good at the routine. I feed Daniel when we get there and let him play awhile until it's his bedtime. He's 14 months old now, toddles everywhere, but never without a truck or a book in hand. I caught him at a serious moment--usually he sparkles with smiles and belly laughs. Lucky me, he loves to go to bed and curls up with Green Dog and goes right to sleep.

Jenna decided last week to build a playground with her big Lego blocks. Her construction included all kinds of play equipment and people to use them. The final touch was a green tree with daisies on one side and a red rose bush on the other. Imagine seeing all that in those rigid rectangular blocks. She delights in reading stories to us from her beginning readers. It's an awesome thing to see a child beginning to read, when you realize the lifetime of pleasure books can bring. We're a family of "bookaholics," it seems.

The quarter-acre woods

What is it about wildflowers in the spring? I didn't fully appreciate how much I missed the flowers that were decimated by honeysuckle over the years. Now they're coming back, and I can scarcely leave my kitchen window; I gaze across the woods and down the hill, where blue and gold flash throughout the day, interspersed with purple and white. My five-year woodland project is into its sixth year, and it has been worth all the hard work. I envision the woods looking more beautiful every year.

Spring Tonic

After the weird winter, I'm surprised that the wildflowers in my quarter-acre woods are doing so well. The Dutchman's breeches and bloodroot are coming in little colonies now instead of single plants, several in places where I don't remember planting them.

Today has been a peak April day, in the mid 60s with alternating sun and showers. I ran out between showers to take a few pictures. I don't photograph all the flowers because I have a complete record on my web site. Now it's more fun to amble through the woods and see what surprises lay at my feet with every step.

Never mind blizzards, Spring is coming

I checked the woods yesterday after I got back from Louisiana and found snowdrops and winter aconite beginning to bloom. Yay! I hope I can do some work in the woods over the next couple of weeks, before I go to Calgary to teach. There are a lot of fallen branches and I need to realign the ones I use to mark my path through the woods. The daffodils are beginning to push up, around four inches now, so we'll see some blooms soon. Today's rain washed away a lot of the thinner patches of snow. A woman said to me that she didn't like the rain, and I couldn't resist asking if she would rather it were snow. Oops. She didn't like that. I'm always glad when it rains--we need the water.

Pink-tailed squirrel

I've been trying for weeks to get a good photo of this dude. He is one of six or eight resident grey squirrels that nibble and tussle under our bird feeders. Note that I said "grey" squirrels. They are all uniformly grey--no fox squirrels anywhere around. I suspect that one of his parents is an albino squirrel that shows up from time to time. In certain light and when he has his tail bushed out, it's very pink--you can see both red and white hairs in it. I wonder if this is as unusual as I think it is. He seems to be as frisky and healthy as the others.

A surprise every day in the woods

When we first cleared out the honeysuckle in the woods in 2002, it looked hideously barren and I was afraid we had made a big mistake. About a month later, a lone Ohio spiderwort bloomed, which gave me hope there might be more dormant wildflowers just waiting for some sunshine. The next year there were two spiderwort plants in different places. They never multiplied until this year. Now there are five. What a treat!

The wild geraniums are also apreading robustly from one small clump at the back of the woods and are now found in patches along with the bluebells and toothwort. They are so colorful and fill in after the bluebells have finished blooming. They are surrounded in some places by may-apples, whose little nodding flowers are just beginning to open under their green umbrellas.

Some critter ate my merry-bells, which now may be gone forever. But it missed the wild columbine, an intriguing flower. I made a rough, winding path through the woods, bordered by wildflowers that are spreading from the top of the hill to the base. Each day I'm finding only one or two garlic-mustard plants getting ready to bloom, but I have to be vigilant. I was told that this pest releases hundreds of seeds and every one of them is viable, so even one plant can do a lot of damage. My neighbors are helpful and are pulling them from their gardens before they set seeds.

See my woods and my wildflowers on my web site.

Update on the woods

I honestly thought the woods was doomed when we had the alternating heat-and-freeze weather attacks the past few weeks. Even the may-apples looked like boiled cabbage. Things seem to be blooming in strange sequences, though. Some early bloomers like spring beauty are only now showing up. Happily, most things seem to have bounced back and the woods is beautifully abloom. The bluebells are spreading, so instead of one patch by the patio, there are now splotches of blue throughout the woods. I planted some wild blue flox a couple of years ago and they are finally blooming. There is another patch that I think might be from dormant seeds of the ones that we enjoyed years ago. The entire woods used to be filled with phlox until the honeysuckle took over. I'm still patrolling to keep the honeysuckle from coming back and to prevent the garlic-mustard from going to seed. I only find one or two now, which is so amazing when you consider that the woods was choked with both five years ago when I started this project. I did find colonies of flowering garlic-mustard under the huge fir trees last night. They are very sneaky and were hiding in there. They're history now.

If you're new to my blog, you might be interested in the story of my woodland restoration project on my website or my pictures of the wildflowers in the woods. Some of those shown haven't survived, but many are flourishing. I'm happy to let nature work out the natural balance. I love to walk through the my little quarter-acre woods and enjoy the view from my windows.

Seeing the landscape

The first year of our woodland restoration we planted ten bareroot twigs that were supposed to be redbud trees in a little grove just past the end of the driveway. We've been waiting patiently all this time. Two of them died and a couple look puny. This year we were rewarded with our first blossoms on the biggest tree almost four feet tall now.

At this time of year I'm always reminded of one of the most important lessons I ever learned when I first began to paint in watercolors. The instructor took us to a covered bridge in the country in the early spring. He told us to look carefully at everything before we painted, because not everything was as green as we expected it to be. Sure enough, off in the distance, where the trees were just beginning to bud, a soft pink dominated where the palest of green leaves hadn't yet begin to sprout. That was my first experience with outdoor painting, which now has the loftier name, "plein air" painting. That same teacher introduced me to my favorite landscape painting book, Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting. My other favorite is another oldie, Painting Trees & Landscapes in Watercolor.

The wildflowers are amazing

I noticed when I got home from Dallas on Monday that there were spots of white and color in the quarter-acre woods. On Tuesday I took a walk and here's what I found blooming or ready to pop: twinleaf (photo), bloodroot, spring beauty, Virginia bluebells, grape hyacinth, Grecian windflower, Siberian squill, pulmonaria, sharp-lobed hepatica, periwinkle, white violet, toothwort, Dutchman's breeches, and isopyrum. Also, the forsythia and daffodils are cheerful in spite of getting whacked by low temperatures after they had sent up four or five inches of leaves in January. Go to my wildflower pages to see what the flowers look like.

I ripped out a few spindly alien honeysuckle seedlings and noticed that there are some garlic-mustard sprouts, but nothing like I've been battling in past years. The overgrowth of these plants completely wiped out the blooming wildflowers I used to have. I planted lots of new flowers, but I think many of those that are flourishing have been dormant for years. See my woodland pages for more on my restoration project. I think it will be a breeze to do the weed cleanup this year, but there are a lot of branches down from high winds this winter. These stay on the woodland floor, but I break them into small pieces so they'll decompose more quickly.

Snowdrops in the woods

Just as I hoped, the early wildflowers have made their first appearance. I have two little clumps of snowdrops in the woods and they are both blooming today. One is more robust than the other and has increased from one to four blossoms this year, but neither seems to be spreading. I don't know why they don't multiply, but I'm happy to see them anyway. Maybe they were waiting for daylight saving time.

Spring wildflowers

It won't be long now. The temperature is out of single digits and on the way up to the 50s over the weekend. I'm getting impatient to see what comes up this year in my little woods. Some of the possibilities are on my wildflower pages on my web site. This winter aconite will probably be one of the first to pop up, but it won't be as early this year as it has been in the past. Oooh, I can hardly wait!

"A haze on the far horizon"

Definitely feeling fall-ish in Ohio. The nights and days have both turned cooler with lower humidity. We're falling asleep hearing insects eeeeping in the woods and waking up in the middle of the night to total silence. Lovely. I went to the grocery on Friday and as I walked through the parking lot on my way in, I saw a man loading a beautiful fall arrangement with sunflowers into his car. I vowed I had to have one, if there was another in the store. It was an extravagance I don't usually allow myself, but I've been enjoying them on my breakfast-room table all weekend. We could still have a warm Indian Summer, but I always enjoy the first preview of autumn.

Ohio spiderwort

When we first moved to this house thirty-eight years ago, my little quarter-acre woods was carpeted with Ohio spiderwort. As the honeysuckle and garlic-mustard spread, the spiderwort disappeared. I removed most of those pests in 2002 and to my delight, one lone spiderwort bloomed that year. I almost missed it because it was at the base of a tree and I couldn't see it from the house. A couple of years later another popped up, also hidden from casual view. Imagine my delight as I sat on the patio this afternoon, looking out over the woods, and saw two bright spots of purple. I walked down the path and found two new volunteer spiderwort plants. So cool!

Jack-in-the-pulpit

Joyce requested this photo. Here's Jack. He grew a couple of inches since yesterday, so I guess he isn't a baby anymore. I noticed flowers on one of the young buckeye trees this morning. The parent tree next door was cut down a couple of years ago, but there are quite a few young trees and seedlings in the woods that are thriving without the honeysuckle overgrowth.

Watercolor pouring continued (not)

Didn't get a chance to pour today, but will tomorrow, I promise. I'm also going to do book reviews here of two books on pouring watercolors. I plan to move my book reviews here from my web site and put them up as I read them instead of waiting for web site updates.

Too much to do today. I made a flyer for the Pre-publication Offer for my new book, The New Creative Artist this morning and had some printed to take to the program I'm doing next week for the Western Ohio Watercolor Society. Then I helped hang a show for the Tri Art Club at the 48 High Street Gallery in Dayton. Haven't done that for quite awhile and I enjoyed it. Tonight I'm going to check out the slides I've selected for next week's WOWS program (after CSI, of course).

Woodlands update: I found a baby Jack-in-the-pulpit blooming in the lower woods today. I think it came from seeds I planted from one of my older plants in the upper woods. I'm feeling more and more like Mother Nature every day.

Boston, Wicked and the woods

I've been out of town since last Wednesday, visiting my son in Boston. What a great town! We saw a David Hockney portraits exhibit at the Museum of Fine Art and visited my favorite Arthur Dove paintings while we were there. Then we went to the Fogg Museum at Harvard to see the American Watercolors exhibition, which was fantastic. Not a big show, but really good examples of the work of American artists from the 19th century to 1950. Whistler was my favorite, but I loved the Homers, Sargents and Hoppers, too. We went to see "Wicked," the story of the Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz. It was great fun. I didn't expect it to be slapstick, but it was, in places. On Friday we hiked through the Garden in the Woods and enjoyed the early wildflowers, which weren't as far out as mine are, but there are many more than I have in my little woods. Nevertheless, I was glad to walk through my little woods when I got home and see even more wildflowers blooming and some new ones popping out. I discovered a couple of colonies of garlic mustard under the big fir trees before I left, so I pulled it all out this afternoon. I keep saying I've seen the end of it, but I suppose I never will. Still, in the woods I find only one or two each time I walk through, so I've made huge progress. In a few days, when I'm caught up on everything else, I'll update my woodlands pages on my web site. I have several paintings to get ready for juried shows. They all seem to come at once in the spring and the fall. I haven't entered shows for years but since I had a few pieces I did for the new book, I thought I might as well put them out there. Framing is so expensive I may not make a habit of it!

What's new in the woodland restoration

Here and there in the woods I'm finding bloodroot blooming where I haven't seen it for years. I know I planted a few, but I'm pretty sure some of it has been dormant for a long time. I think I mentioned the first flowers came in March--a couple of snowdrops, followed by winter aconite. Then suddenly last week some pink Grecian windflowers I planted were blooming next to a little spring beauty I brought from my daughter's woods. Yesterday some grape hyacinths popped out in the same area. Elsewhere there are white striped violets, vinca minor, Siberian squill, celandine poppy, sharp-lobed hepatica, a few toothwort and false rue anemone (isopyrum). The Virginia bluebells will bloom soon. They've scattered here and there throughout the woods and in time will be a beautiful display, I think. I've posted a year of wildflowers in my woods on my web site. Most of them are blooming a little later this year.

It's so nice to be able to walk through the woods without getting snagged by broken honeysuckle invasives everywhere. I've only found one seedling so far this spring. The garlic mustard is widely scattered, so not much work has to be done to clear it except in the back corner, where I wore out last fall and let it go. Even that isn't too bad. Overall, my woodland restoration has been a success, especially since I decided last year not to make this a woodland garden, but to keep it natural. Instead of mulch, the path is covered with fallen leaves and roughly outlined with dead branches. I like to walk on the path so I don't endanger any delicate plants.

Spring has sprung in the quarter-acre woods

It was sunny and cold today, but the wind wasn't blowing, so I took a walk through my woods. I found two brave little snowdrops blooming, the first flowers of the season. They're the same ones that bloomed last year, only a bit later. If you haven't been to my web site, you wouldn't know hard I've worked to restore my little quarter-acre woods, reclaiming it from the grasp of invasive honeysuckle and garlic mustard. Every little flower is like a magic blossom to me, after years of no wildflowers in the woods. Check out the pages on my woodland restoration.