Small Goodies

I spent most of the day working on Confidence Camp. Cathy came over and we divided and packaged a lot of the items that participants will receive and learn how to use. I spent most of the rest of my time refining "lesson plans."

Meanwhile, some more areas of the rock garden are looking nice. This area of color is great. The yellow is Moneywort, Lysemachia nummularia 'Goldilocks.' This has totally surprised me by looking better than ever since I've revived the rock garden. It really prefers something more moist. There are violets, and a Sempervivum Margaret gave me that stays quite red.

This is another of the miniature daffodils I bought a long time ago but has come back. This is 'Rip VanWinkle' with violets and some of the first of the moss phlox to open behind it.

This is a daffodil I split last year that had gotten all bunched up. The other patch didn't come up, but the ones I left in the rock garden did. They are really too tall, but I put them at the very bottom, so that works. These are a tarzetta daffodil, variety 'Erlicheer.' The leaves persist way too long, so I need to figure out what else I can also put there for later in the year.

I just have to show you the Sempervivum 'Gold Nugget' again. It's starting to change from red to gold!

And for the final act of the day, we will switch to the front flower bed. This is the sunburned Brunnera I bought at the end of the summer last year. It's the first of my Brunnera to bloom this spring! Variety is 'Variegata.' I'm really happy with this one. I really bought all of my Brunnera for the foliage, but have been delighted with the early spring forget-me-not-like flowers.

It still hasn't rained, but it's been plenty windy!

See A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

What an absolutely glorious day! Temps in the 70s with a light breeze. And I have flowers blooming to prove it.

The Corydalis 'Blackberry Wine' is pretty much in full bloom, and I now have at least 3 clumps. Maybe a couple of other spots of it. I'll be happy to have this spread because the leaves die back in summer so there is plenty of space for other things to fill in.

Just to complete the report, this is as good as that one lonely regular hyacinth is going to get. However, I see that there are a couple of other clumps of leaves. Maybe they will do something. I keep hoping for that, but in all honesty, they never do. They probably don't like sand. I also moved the three crocus that were in the yard to this flower bed.

The rock garden is starting to come alive! There are blue grape hyacinth all over the place. Also an OK thing because those leaves also die back.

A few violets are starting to open. I pretty much let them bloom and fill in wherever. They self seed all over, but they are easily ripped out if they get too aggressive.

The 'Kaydee' daffodils are in full bloom. Yes, the trumpets are sort of a salmon color. These are medium size- not miniature, but not full size, either.

And finally, the first photo shot of trying to show off mixed colors. The white grape hyacinth, violets in the middle and the 'Gold Nugget' Sempervivum behind that.

I worked on most projects, did errands, fixed the nylon screen door for the deck (ahh- a nice breeze), put out the bird bath

The front garden bed is pretty much cleaned up for the spring. It was amazingly easier than other years because I got it in good shape last year. I also started through the rock garden. I'm starting later than last year, but everything seems to be about a week later.

Of course, I see that some plants lived and some didn't. I'll post the body count as it becomes certain.

See Festival in Yellow

You Say Chasmogamous and I Say Cleistogamous

 The super quality of today comes from learning something completely new. I'm pretty sure this is not a case of my simply forgetting something I learned a long time ago. I'm totally blown away.

I couldn't stop thinking about the five-part violet flower having a three-part seed pod. Things in the mustard family have four-part flowers (four petals, four sepals, four part ovary, four-sided pods). Tulips and juncus have six petals, etc, which fuse into a three-sided seed pod. But five to three just doesn't compute.

I didn't really get the answer to my question. I thought maybe the lower petal, the "lip" was two fused petals such as in snapdragons, but that doesn't seem to be the case. (I suppose there doesn't have to be an answer, it just "is"). But I found out a whole lot.

Remember those little closed pods I showed you yesterday? I brought a few inside to look at more closely. Here's one.

Well, it turns out that the violet (and some other plants) produce two kinds of flowers. This is a cleistogamus flower. Huh?

First, let's sort out those big words. We already almost know them. We know monogamous and bigamous and polyagmous. Yup... all referring to a type of marriage. Well, it seems there are two more words in this series. Chasmo- is open, and cleisto- is closed. I will try to remember this because cleisto- sounds like cloister (not etymologically related), and chasmo- sounds like chasm, an open yawning gully (these are etymologically related). So chasmogomous flowers are open to pollination from anyone! These are the big, showy purple flowers we all know and love in violets in the springtime.

Well, in a plant, promiscuity can be a good thing. It leads to genetic diversity and strengthening of the population.

Now let's take a break from the big words and look at that little "pod" again. The little green pointed things that look like leaves are the sepals. And there are five of them, as you would expect from a plant that has five petals. If you rotate this, you see there are three sepals that are larger and wrap around to the stem, while two of them are smaller and lapped to the inner layer. In this picture you can see two of the larger sepals and one small inner sepal.

Those two inner sepals do not become major divisions of the pod. Looking at the end, you can clearly see there are three sections.

But, jumping Jupiter! This is not a seed pod. It's a cleistogamous flower. That means it's closed. As in completly closed. It never opens; it self-polinates, and is not even monogamous. More like a hermaphrodite. Some plants produce cleistogamus flowers in the fall, and violets are big on the activity. The process takes fewer resources than growing petals, necter, or large quantities of pollen. They insure reproduction even if slugs or rabbits eat all the pretty flowers, or someone mows the lawn.

Furthermore, these violet seed pods dehisce, which means they open violently and fling their seeds out into the world. In fact, this was closed when I brought it in the house but it split into that pinwheel in just a few minutes.

The next stage is the pinwheel full of seeds that I showed you a couple of days ago.

Now, I'll have to watch for the chasmogamous seed pods in the spring.

I worked on necessary stuff, punctuated by weeding the rock garden all day.

See Common Blue Violet's Promise

Patterns and Math

 You know I love things with patterns. Some of them can even be described mathematically. Maybe that's one reason I like sempervivum a lot. Here are three from my rock garden that have somewhat different growth patterns.

The first one is 'Gold Rush.' It's looking pretty happy, and is keeping its yellow color. This pattern is most typical of Sempervivum. Some are even spread open a little more, although they all tend to tighten up and circle the wagons, so to speak, when left outside as the weather cools.

This is Sempervivum arachnoidea. It has the "spider webbing" which shows up clearly at this time of year. They are tightly curled almost into a ball.

But my favorite at this time of year is the Sempervivum globiferum. I had nicknamed them 'Roly Poly' for years until I found their actual name. To make babies they send out little balls which roll away and then take root. But here is a large (for this species) established rosette. Can you say Fibonacci?

This isn't a repeating pattern like the above, but it was very cool to find. Unfortunately I couldn't get a good picture without a clear background, and then the whole thing took on that color because it's nearly transparent. Actual size less than 3/4 inch across. This is a clammy ground cherry seed pod that has become skeletonized. That means all the tissue has decomposed except the veins, which are harder. Skeletonized leaves are also very cool to find. It has to be somewhat mathematical because veins, tree branches, etc. all follow fractals.

This is a water pattern from the other day. All of these are examples of wave patterns as the light is reflected off the surface of the water when waves (ripples- waves and wave interference, etc) are formed.

Finally, this is simply a pattern of completion. I figured I should show the violet seed pods before they open. There are two little pods hiding among the stems and leaves. Remember the seed pods opened into three parts? I just realized that's a little odd. Violets are dicots (two baby leaves). Most monocots (one baby leaf) have three-part pods. Not so much with dicots. I'll have to think about this some more.

Mostly, I worked on the last weeding of the rock garden for the year, and played with my database.

See Clammy Ground Cherry See Common Blue Violet Seeds

Seeds- Common Blue Violet's Promise

 I have let a lot of the "wild" common blue violet live in the rock garden, Viola sororia. They are so profuse it would be really hard to get rid of them anyway, and they make nice filler wherever I want it. I just pull the rest.

No blossoms now. This is a spring picture, of course.

But what does it look like at the end of the season? When the seed pods split open and dump their seeds they look like mini wind turbines rising above the leaves.

Where are the seeds? They fall out of the pods really easily. I found one full of seeds, went to get the camera and by the time I got back a breeze or something had already emptied it. But I found another.

This picture is blown up. Each seed is barely a milimeter across. Tiny. But they sure do the job. There are violets sprouting all over the place.

I was good and worked on a lot of the things I should be doing today. Didn't walk. I ended up spending a lot of time trying to figure out what was wrong with my phone. Ha! Turns out Verizon admitted to 100,000 complaints today. But the weird thing here is that Omer's phone worked and mine didn't. They are on the same plan and we were here in the same space. So, this did not make any sense to us. Anyway. It's working now.

See First Flowers of 2010

Purple Parade

 After I looked at the pictures, I decided this is an interesting collection. Individually, most people would call all of these purple (maybe with some fading off to maroon, but if you had to pick one of the 6 basic colors, most people would pigeonhole them into purple).

The first one is PURPLE purple. This is Jewel Baby Iris, and it's the first time it's bloomed in a while. So far this year, I've had two blossoms. It's about 4 inches tall.

We all call these purple lilacs- just the old farmstead standby. But compared to the Jewel Baby they look pink.

The Sempervivum sp. 'Arachnoidea' looks really nice. The one I used to have was smaller and green. It's long dead. This one came from Betsy, and it's certainly pushing purple. EDITED: This is not arachnoidea at all. It's the variety 'King George,' growing right where my plant records say it should be. I did not realize it also has some slight webbing.

Its friend is Sedum reflexum, what I call "blue spruce sedum." I've had this forever from a freebie pile. It spreads easily and sprawls all over but never looks all that great. Well! I guess I now know what it needs to look better. In two places where a clump is crowded between rocks it has made this nifty "fountain spray." I like these together.

Found the Sedum 'Cherry Tart!' This is another of the Sunsparkler hybrids. I actually ordered this and got a tiny, tiny sprig for $7 plus shipping. I really wasn't expecting to see it this spring. And then, I wasn't sure where I put it. But I at least got it labeled, even if it didn't get in the notebooks. This is going to be gorgeous when it starts to spread. You might almost call this red compared to some of the purples. Keep in mind this is clump is about 2" on a side. But, it's no smaller than when I planted it, and it's alive.

Just for reference, these are true purple; I think we'd all agree. Plain old common violets, but they fill in open spaces nicely.

And for today's final purple, here's Sedum 'Ezawe' again. I showed you this earlier, and thought it looked more blue then, but maybe not. Today it seems purple. I do like the plants that display multiple colors depending on the time of year, the light, etc. As a reminder, I wasn't sure this one was going to make it, but it seems very happy so far this year.

Today was packed full. I worked on some volunteer stuff. I did 108 miles of campsites. I was interviewed by "Senior Games" for a podcast. It will be out in a couple of weeks, and I'll post a link when I get it. I managed to work for an hour in the rock garden.

I'm tired, but that's the way I like to end the day.

See Sedum Scramble

Back to Crystal Valley

 I went back out to Crystal Valley today, but still didn't hike every piece of every loop. I did walk 8.3 miles though.

It's still not really spring in the woods. Found more hilly trails. This is a really good area to get a workout around here. From the parking lot to the high point is about 300 feet difference, but the trails go up and down a lot. I definitely climbed and descended more than 300 feet. My tracker said my net elevation gain was 2.67 feet. Right. All that means is that I went in a loop which is good. Returning to the car is good.

I took several pictures that didn't come out at all. I took a picture of Sweetfern in bloom. Not in focus. It smells even more spicy than the leaves.

There was sun, so I was able to get a nice shadow of some emerging leaves on a rock.

The Shadbush is trying to show off. That's one of the very earliest blooms in the woods.

I was hoping for some wildflowers, but it's a very dry woods, so I didn't have big expectations. All I found was one small clump of common violets at the edge of a clearing.

A tattered Red Admiral butterfly was hanging around while I ate my lunch. I did also see a dragonfly.

It's really interesting that where the trees are getting sunlight they are starting to pop! This was a fencerow on the way home. I love this time of year.

Since I had to repeat some sections of some loops to get to "new" trail, I did stop at the chestnut balls and look around more carefully for the tree. Hmmm. I did not find anything that has the right bark. That said, I think chestnut bark can be rather variable, but I'm still mystified. I found more of the balls uphill in the woods, so I think my idea that they rolled downhill into the trail is true. And I found one ball that was broken open about a quarter mile from the others. I suspect a squirrel.

I've been trying to meet my 100 miles of campsites quota since I got home. I'm about at 40 miles. Will I make it before I give up for the day?

Total miles hiked in 2024: 208.9 of which 70.6 is North Country Trail.

Crystal Valley Ski loops, Oceana County, MI. Various loops, 8.3 miles

See Crystal Valley Outer Loop

Make New Friends - Day 425

Today, I hiked with a new friend, Dan, who recently joined the Spirit of the Woods Chapter. He's very enthusiastic about the trail and helping with maintenance! He brought Riley who is still a puppy, but was well-behaved for a young dog.

You know how the rest of the song goes: Make new friends,...but keep the old. One is silver and the other gold. Cathy hiked too. I've known Cathy... amazingly enough for close to 50 years. That hardly seems possible.

The picture was taken at Dead Horse Marsh which, as you can see behind them, is dry this year. It only floods about every 10 years, the most recent time in 2020.

Spring leaves are popping. The forest varied today from really greening up...

...to black and gray, because the Forest Service has been doing some controlled burns. The area looks ugly right now, because it was just done last week. This will quickly green up, and the forest will be healthier because of it. It is a little shocking to see it like this, but I was forewarned, so I was prepared.

A couple more "first of the year" flower sightings. I was looking for birds-foot violet, Viola pedata, because I knew it grows in the area where we hiked. The petals are a bit chewed up, but it's nice and open so you can see it. Notice the divided palmate leaves, like a bird's foot.

The other find was a very small Jack-in-the-Pulpit. Arisaema triphyllum s.s.. I hope to see many more of these, and probably some much more handsome ones. But the first is always special.

We talked about trail stuff the whole way. More specifically, I talked. I don't consider myself a chatterbox, but when someone keeps asking me stuff about the trail, I just can't shut up. Hopefully, I said good things. Afterwards, Dan bought North Country Quest. He already owns "Cache." Riley looks like she is ready to check it out too. Thanks, Dan!

Also, part of this was "my" section of trail (the piece I maintain), and the rest of it Dan just took over. So we chatted about trail work and blazing, and all that as well.

Miles today: 8.0. Total miles so far: 4689.6

See Little Manistee