April Notes 2024

One of my favorite things about spring is when people don’t mow and their lawns turn into a sort of wild meadow full of wild grasses, fleabane, chickweed, dandelions and so forth, all the things most people don’t want in their lawns. This is what the little bits of lawn in my garden look like right now except I don’t have much dandelion. If I did I’d be eating it as it’s extremely healthy I hear. I’m lucky my neighbors don’t seem to mind. In fact some of their lawns look the same! I suppose some of these plants aren’t the best for complex ecosystems but maybe they aren’t the worst?

Here comes the dogbane! (Apocynum cannabinum)

Yes, it’s looking much more like May here in the DC Metro area. One day the dogbane sprouted up all over the meadow. Even the oaks are leafing out and looking amazing with their velvety red leaves.

Red oak I think. (Quercus Rubra)

There are flowers!

Violets (Viola sororia) and Beggarslice (Hackelia virginiana) and hairy bittercress.

And bees!

A mining bee in the genus Andrena.

The birds are singing their best songs and the rabbits are chasing each other way too close to the busy street.

The elusive grackles are back cleaning out our gutters and getting all fluffed up for their ladies.

A common grackle in the maple.

A Northern flicker drums on the shop gutter annoying my husband.

The hairy bittercress shoots its seeds high in the air when I walk through it.

Hairy bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta).

The Eastern Red Cedar (Juniperus virginiana) on the left has gotten so big from being just a tiny sprout I moved from the patio!

Suddenly, it is GREEN!

Maybe I should start eating violets.

Except for the brown areas of my vegetable garden where I planted lettuce and snap peas. I’m not quite sure what is going on here but I got impatient with the lettuce and planted beets and radishes. I’m seeing signs of radishes but no beets. What gives? The garlic in the background, as you can see looks ready to be picked. Well, the violets sure love it and yesterday it was pretty warm and there were the cellophane bees, hundreds of them, flying frantically everywhere seeming not to have any idea what they were doing. But I know they know exactly what they’re doing. Probably looking for a mate or a place to make a nest or something if I had to guess. Anyhow, it’s another reminder that I want to take care when digging around not to disturb them.

One of the many cellophane bees in my garden from last year. Probably the Rufous-backed Cellophane Bee (Colletes thoracicus)

Pussytoes in the genus Antennaria.

I’m partial to the wild plants in my garden versus the cultivated ones but I do like these little flowers and their name is pretty cute too. They’re in the aster family and grow in meadows.

So spring is moving at ludicrous speed. I hope you have a chance to stop and smell the roses or flowers or just enjoy it while it lasts.

Every spring is a fresh start.