Parks are closed, so I’m sticking with nearby nature. Yep, I’m sticking like Cleavers on corduroy.*
Today, I walked the yard to take phone pics of native flowers: only natives. (Non-natives, I’ll post tomorrow.) Continue reading “Native flowers in the yard today”
A short walk on the Mossy Ridge at Warner Park is good medicine.
I never say Nature is for Healing, because “Nature” is not here to make people feel better. “Nature” has every right to exist for its own mysterious, necessary, world-turning processes.
BUT, I do say that paying attention to the natural world can mitigate some humans ills, and one of them is anxiety. Continue reading “Warner Wildflowers, mid-March part 2”
Lyre-leaf sage. Isn’t it a pretty name? And a pretty flower? But this is another of those “weeds” people poison and mow and pluck out of precious lawn grass. Lyre-leaf sage is native, it spreads by seed, it can make a lovely groundcover (a good native alternative to Ajuga / Bugle), and I just this minute learned it is an excellent nectar plant for hummingbirds. Continue reading “Sidewalk Nature: Hummingbird weeds”
Here’s a few seconds of rain tapping hundreds of umbrellas. Mayapples (Podophyllum peltatum) were one of my first wildflowers, and are still a favorite. The fat, green parasols have a cartoony cuteness, as if the Lorax grew spring ephemerals under his Truffula trees. Continue reading “Park Nature: Early April”
Folks get sad with the short days and cold weather, so I need to advertise what might be a brief antidote.
Flowers.
In the grass.
In late December.
Henbit’s tiny purple trumpets, chickweed’s white stars, and ivy-leaf speedwell’s bright blue eyes are all twinkling from the grass right now in Nashville. Continue reading “Winter Solstice flowers”
When I was a kid, sweat bees were the enemy. Now we are.
This little sweat bee is gathering pollen from a native Carolina rose.
See the yellow grains stuck to the hairs on her legs?
She’s likely gathering provisions for eggs laid in a teensy underground tunnel. Continue reading “Why this sweat bee and I hate your mosquito contract”
For a couple of weeks, I’ll be looking around not nearby in Nashville, but in England: Dartmoor National Park, mostly, plus a few other places on our way to and from. We are lucky to be here. Continue reading “Look Around (England)”
Once upon a time, a new grass appeared in the yard. At first, I thought the narrow leaves were wild onion, but they didn’t taste oniony. They didn’t look oniony, either, not on closer inspection: each wore a silvery line down the middle of the green.
Later, when these mystery leaves began to yellow, a flower stalk emerged. It was staggered with green and white striped buds. Exquisite! Then, the buds bloomed into white, six-petaled flowers even more exquisite.
It was Ornithogalum umbellatum L.: Star of Bethlehem.
I hate it.
Continue reading “Star of Bethlehem: Thug of my Yard”There are swaths of yellow right now in Elmington Park: small yellow blooms massed in the lawn. I hope the city doesn’t mow soon, because the yellow is Nashville mustard—our mustard—and it needs to go to seed and spread. I saw it on the way to Hebrew School, and as soon as I could, I went back and parked the car in the lot, then parked my body flat on the grass.
Frostflowers are neither frost nor flower, but are “blooming” right now.
Continue reading “Frostflowers”
Sidewalk Nature 