Spring Greetings from Kitsap Forests

Spring Salutations and Fall Felicitations to all!

Trees in the Pacific Northwest are blooming, and in the cold forests of Kitsap County our deciduous trees are slowly awakening.

Wild willow hybrids (Salix) are early with fuzzy pussywillow flowers. Today you can smell hints of the balsam perfume of the Black cottonwood (Populus balsamifera spp. trichocarpa) drifting through on the breeze. Evergreen huckleberries (Vaccinium ovatum), an important year-round food source for birds and beasts of all kinds, have already begun to blossom.


Red alder (Alnus rubra) trees are among the first to wiggle open here in the spring warmth. The “red” of their appellation is best revealed in spring when the twigs, buds, and catkin flowers all blush with the rise of sap and the stir of March storms. Alders are a hearty pioneering species which help establish good growing conditions for other plant species in the forest.

We have a healthy stand of young alders (10+ years) which grew over the part of the property which was originally clear-cut. Today they are home to birds, frogs, mice, snakes, bunnies, bees, and plenty of other critters (and there’s an awesome blackberry thicket producing in the middle).

Spring days are patchworks of rain, cloud, wind, thunder, and sudden, bright sunbreaks. It’s the right time of year for rainbow watching, so if you see sun, rain, and black clouds in the early morning or late afternoon, I highly recommend that you step away from your desk, go outside, and search the sky for fleeting arcs of color.

Want more spring trees and flowers? Take a look at spring blossoms in eastern Pennsylvania from March 2006 and March 2007.

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REMINDER: The Festival of the Trees issue 46 is hosted at Vanessa’s Trees and Shrubs Blog on About.com.

Vanessa invites submissions of all kinds, and is especially interested in humorous trees in honor of April Fool's Day.

• Deadline for submissions is March 29th.
• Participation is easy: blog about trees, send us the link, spread the word!
• Email submissions to: treesandshrubs.guide [at] about [dot] com — or use the contact form at The Festival of the Trees coordinating blog.

Flowering and Blossoming Trees Edition: Festival of the Trees 35 Now Online at Orchards Forever

These days I spend more time in the forest and the garden than I do in my office. Fortunately, many other tree-lovers continue in the fine spirit of arborblogging, as featured each month at The Festival of the Trees.

This May, The Festival of the Trees 35 "Flowering and Blossoming Trees Edition" is hosted once again at Orchards Forever. Honoring the fruits and flowers of Beltane and the return of warm days in the northern hemisphere, our hostess Peg immerses us in the annual celebration of bud burst. She includes an image of a red flowering currant, compliments of the Brambleberries in the Rain blog. Thank you, blogging friends, for sharing one of my dearest, favorite plants in all her finery!

I join the celebration with today’s image of the emerging blossoms on my flowering cherry tree, planted in my garden some eight or nine years ago. All the trees are drinking up today’s luscious spring rain, compliments of the Pacific Northwest.

What’s that? You want MORE tree blogging? You’ve got it: Here are the past few months’ Festivals of the Trees.

Festival of the Trees 32 hosted at treeblog

Festival of the Trees 33 hosted by Local Ecologist

Festival of the Trees 34 hosted by Seabrooke Leckie at The Marvelous in Nature

Remember, submissions and hosts for The Festival of the Trees are always welcome and encouraged. To learn more about The Festival of the Trees, visit the coordinating blog (and sign up for the FOTT newsfeed for email reminders).

Joyous Spring!

Festival of the Trees 21 Orchards and Fruits Edition Now Online at Orchards Forever

This month’s Festival of the Trees 21 is a special fruit and orchard edition hosted by Peg at Orchards Forever. You’ll be sure to enjoy this delicious selection of unique and tasty blog posts. Peg’s thoughtful edition of the Festival of the Trees is well worth the read. Fortunately for us, today’s Festival begins on a Sunday. Enjoy a lazy stroll through the orchards!

To volunteer to host a future festival, and to submit blog posts to future festivals, visit the Festival of the Trees coordinating blog.

Morning Mulberry Trees

Some of you long-time Arborealists may recall the “mulberry mysteries” of last year.

To summarize for our new readers, during my first year in southeastern Pennsylvania I have learned that there are at least four varieties of mulberry trees growing domestically and semi-wild throughout the surrounding area. Furthermore, it is entirely possible that there are unique cultivars from cross-pollination, and that these varieties may be indistinguishable from common species (at least at first glance).

The four varieties I’ve read about include Red mulberry (Morus rubra), White mulberry (Morus alba), Black mulberry (Morus nigra), and Paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera). They each have some distinguishing characteristics, but overall I have had limited success with telling them apart. According to The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Trees: Eastern Region; Elbert L. Little, there are roughly 1400 species in the mulberry family (Moraceae) world-wide; in Eastern North America we can find five native and three naturalized species.

I can see common attributes among certain mulberries, so I know there are a few distinct varieties here at the farm. Characteristics include growth habit, over-all shape, leaf shape and texture, and preferred growing location. Still, there’s nothing definitive for me to point to which makes me confident with identification (not yet, that is).

Today’s images are of a particular species which is common around the farm (this one grows just outside the cottage, so I see it each morning). I believe this variety to be either the Black or the White mulberry.

If you have an opinion on this mulberry’s identity, or tips and tricks from your experience with identifying mulberries in your neighborhood, please do share! In the mean time, I will continue with the mulberry mystery chronicles. Sooner or later, we will find an answer.

Side note: the mulberry family Moraceae also includes the Osage Orange (Maclura pomifera).

Blossoms on Pin Cherry Trees

The buds are just about to open on this pin cherry tree (Prunus pensylvanica) outside my kitchen.

Scilla Shows Signs of Spring

Scilla flowers (Scilla siberica), brought to my gardens from Europe by the owner’s mother many years ago.

Le Printemps est Arrivé!

Spring has definitely arrived, but I smell snow in the air this morning!

Friday Daisies

Those who know me know that daisies and dandelions and flowers of their ilk are among my favorites.

This purple beauty is new to me – I discovered it in the open flower fields at Longwood Gardens, and identified it this week via the blog Beyond the Fields We Know as the Michelmas daisy or Purple aster (Symphyotrichum novi-belgii or Aster novi-belgii).

Over at Pollen Nation, the Daily Flower for September 27th is the dandelion. Hop over to learn more about this beautiful, sunny wonder!

Yellow Poplar Tree in Bloom

Last month we explored the Yellow Poplar tree, also known as the tulip tree. Laura tipped us off to the flowers, which are this tree’s namesake! While I eagerly awaited the blossoms on the local trees, they managed to open and wither before I could take a picture to show their true elegance. The title of my blossom image should be “spent.”

On a more fruitful note, I now can identify several other yellow poplars in the forest around the swamps and springs, where a few enormous trees have had me wondering at their identity ever since last winter. Which reminds me: I should get back in there some time soon so you can see an update of the woods in leaf!

If you want to see some really nice images of the yellow poplar flowers in full-glory, you can check out the gorgeous tulip tree images posted at Turning Toward the Light. The artist got super lucky with some shots of a local tree, and offers you some great information too!

Flowering Trees and Shrubs

This afternoon my landlady gave me the most enormous bouquet ever! It was comprised of cuttings from flowering trees and shrubs in her garden, including mock orange, rhododendrons, boxwood, snowball tree flowers, and several others for which I do not yet have a name.

The bouquet was so outrageous that I couldn’t properly capture it in one shot. Here you see several different images of the different arrangements I was able to make from the bunch. My whole house smells spectacular!

Tomorrow, I have a seriously cool tree to share with you. I’ll give you a hint: it’s a colorful species of beech tree.

For Mom

Happy Mother’s Day Mom! These flowers are for you!

Also, a very happy Mother's Day to Mama Jo!

Here is a little bit about the flowers for you:

The little purple ones are from my next door neighbor’s dwarf Chinese lilac bush (also called the dwarf Korean lilac). This beautiful bush began blooming in the last week or so, and it smells heavenly! Its fragrance is even stronger than the other lilacs on the farm.

Our pink-red flower looks like a rhododendron to me, but I couldn’t possibly tell you its particular species. It may be some sort of azalea, a cousin of the rhododendron.

The snowball tree you may recognize from your own gardens… I’m sure it has a real name besides “snow ball tree”, but I’ll have to work on finding that out for you.

As for the little white flowers in the grass – I have no clue what they are, but I love them! They decided to spring up under the trees a couple weeks ago, and appear to grow wild all around the farm. I am lurking with my shovel to bring some of them in closer to the cottage!

The hydrangea and the sweetgum have a wonderful little anecdote which I have been saving especially for Mother’s Day to share!

And now, A Mother's Day Story:

My landlady lost both her parents in recent years, one after the other. As with many other family members around the farm, she and her family have planted trees in their memory.

According to my landlady, in life her mother was a formidable and confident woman, while her was father a kind and soft-spoken man, an artist and craftsman. She described how her mother would always tower over her father, issuing orders which were to be followed forthwith.

In death, their story continues: for Dad, they planted the hydrangea, and for Mom, the sweetgum, which are pictured in these two final images. Mom continues to tower over Dad year in and year out, and Dad quietly opens his graceful blossoms each spring before Mom’s leaves are out in force.

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To my mom, Mama Jo, and to mothers everywhere:

Happy Mother’s Day!

A Tree For Duchess

Congrats Duchess, YOU ROCK!

Mystery Elm Tree, I Presume?

What we have here is another mystery tree as I mentioned yesterday, but one for which I am leaning strongly towards elm tree as its identity.

Pennsylvania is home to both the American Elm and the Slippery Elm (among others), but for now I haven’t got a clue as to whether this tree is one of the two, or another type of elm entirely.

I do know that it’s gorgeous! Standing tall between the beech and the sycamore I’ve recently introduced you to, this tree once cradled a treehouse for my landlady’s son in his youth. Even without all its leaves on, this supposed-elm-tree is rapidly providing a lovely bit of shade in the northeastern corner of the farm.

What really takes my breath away with this particular tree is not only its elegance, but also those crazy green rosettes of “flowers”. They are actually more like seeds surrounded by circlets of paper-thin petal, all bunched together at the end of the twigs. It will be interesting to see whether those stick around, or grow into something different in coming weeks.

Clearly more investigation of the leaves, bark, fruit, and growth habits of this tree will be required in order to distinguish it from other elms. I’ll have to get back to you on the true identity of this one, but as always please feel welcome to add your own suggestions!

Good Morning Hydrangea!

Lilacs

One of my favorite memories of lilacs is from a house in Kitsap County, Washington. The garden around the house in Kitsap had been manicured to suit the fancy of every fairy, elf and gnome for miles: little coves of carefully sculpted conic hedges concealed happy clumps of columbine and roses beneath tall evergreens. (Oh yeah – and there was a swing-set in the form of a castle. Excellent.)

Apple and pear trees adorned one area of the property, in front of which grew a few enormous lilac trees of pinks, purples, and whites. In springtime there, the lilac fragrance was overwhelming!

Around the farm in Pennsylvania, lilacs have to compete with the sweetness of cherries and other tree blossoms. Nonetheless, once you’re within about 100 meters of a lilac, you can smell it before you see it! My landlady has been generous enough to share some of her lilacs, and in the coming weeks I’ll be trundling over with shovel and wheel barrow to collect a few starts of my own to plant around the cottage.

Arbor Day Tree Blogging

Around the world, people celebrate Arbor Day at different times, but the purpose is always the same: to celebrate the trees.

In my new home state of Pennsylvania, Arbor Day is celebrated on the last day of every April. If you are interested in learning more about Arbor Day, it’s history, and the many dates upon which different countries and states celebrate this special day, you can visit The National Arbor Day Foundation online.

What better excuse than Arbor Day to share a large selection from the plethora of trees that I have gathered for you at Arboreality?

I offer you these tree images in celebration of Arbor Day, and wish you all a wonderful, leafy-green, Happy Tree and Forest Day!