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.

* * *

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.

Neighbors

To conclude our investigation into the Pacific Rhododendron, I’d like to show you two of our subject rhododendron’s favorite neighbors, and dear friends of my own.

Meet Salal, and “Mystery-Bush” – two shrubby evergreens that grow happily along side the rhododendrons in my back yard in Seabeck. These two can be found in many other places around the Pacific Northwest.

The salal is the plant with the large round-ish leaves. Like the rhododendron, salal is a member of the family Ericaceae.

Unlike the parking-lot variety which are small and close to the ground, the salal growing in the forest interior have to reach high to stake their light claims, and most are over a meter tall. Others grow up to five meters high, often leaning on their neighbors for extra support.

As to “mystery-bush”… here is my quandary: I believe that it is a type of common huckleberry, also of the family Ericaceae, but I haven’t been able to confirm that. Another alternative would be that it is a shrub called boxwood (part of a different family, I believe). I am simply at a loss. Maybe they are one and the same, and it's merely a question of local word choice?

Whatever it is, this lovely plant produces swaths of tiny, pink fragrant blossoms which are followed by huge clumps of juicy, sweet, blue, violet, and black berries. Not only do the small birds and the bumble bees LOVE these plants, but apparently huskies do too!

Both of the husky dogs that have lived with me have enjoyed many an hour sitting beside these bushes, shucking the berries off like so much corn! Once they’ve finished with one bush, they move to the next one. The evidence of their efficient and voracious harvesting method is shown in the undigested leaves adorning each healthy poopy in the morning.

As a side note, we also have another huckleberry that grows around the forest which produces tiny, tart, red berries. As much as I might miss all my forest friends of Western Washington, I am so incredibly excited for my opportunity to meet all the plants of the East Coast!

The forests of Seabeck

These images are part of a large collection of pictures taken during one of my projects with the Trees and Humans program at Evergreen, designed and taught by Dr. Nalini Nadkarni.

This project's basic premise was to select a particular tree, spend time with it, learn about it, and report on it.

I chose a 20-foot (ooops... scientists use the metric system... ahem...6.096-meter) Pacific Coastal Rhododendron in the woods behind my house in Seabeck. Incidentally, the Coastal Rhododendron is the Washington State Flower.

This rhodie and I became quite close, and I know she’ll keep an eye on things for me while I’m away. You’ll see pictures of the rhodie in subsequent posts.

For now, enjoy the view that the rhodie enjoys each day! The top image was taken looking southeast from the rhododendron, and the bottom image looking northwest.

Remember you can click on pictures to enlarge them!

trees
forests
wood
Seabeck
rhododendron