'Tis the Season

After the Winter That Would Not End (most of which, admittedly, I missed by being in Mexico), the Mid-Ohio Valley moved into a truncated spring in which all sorts of things seemed to be happening at once. I, at least, do not expect the bloom seasons of irises and trilliums to overlap,

but this year, they did, the trilliums not venturing above the snow until early May and the first bearded irises opening a week or so later.  Nor do I remember yellow lady's slipper orchids

blooming at the same time as the year's first antique rugosa, but there they were at the Toledo Botanical Gardens last week

not that this phenomenon is cause for particular complaint.

Of course, when plants do their spring thing, the birds and the bees also become active, like this bumblebee nectaring on a front yard baptisia.

 There is lots of bird activity in the neighborhood, with the red-shouldered hawks nesting again in the old sycamore on the next block.

Messy yards like mine, where oddments of twigs and dried grass are to be found, have proven useful to the robins, which are frequently seen departing with beakfuls of materials for their second nest in the lawn strip kousa dogwood. A pair of cardinals has chosen the red maple next to the kousa, while something small and brown has built a nest high in the walled garden's Norway spruce, a tree I would never plant but which the neighborhood birds have claimed for themselves.

Spring took forever to arrive, but it is definitely here.

Woodland magic

Mid-spring is a great time to be in the woods. In our more-or-less northern region (Minnesotans and Canadians, I have learned, tend to think of even northern Ohio as the South), the literal snowbirds like warblers and tanagers have returned from their winter homes, and the spring ephemerals and early understory shrubs are giving it their all.

Today's ramblings took me through the shade garden at the Toledo Botanical Garden and along the upland woods trail at Toledo's Wildwood Metropark, two of my favorite places in the world.

Edge of the woodland garden at the TBG

This year's bloom schedule has been unpredictable, given the Winter that Would Not End, and I managed to miss trillium season at the TBG, which grows multiple varieties of that signature Ohio wildflower. But the rhododendron walk was coming into its own,

A favorite specimen

and the Bluebell Wood was in full bloom, not that I could get a decent picture. The shooting stars (Dodecathon media) were putting on quite a show,

blooming in large stands of their own, as well as accompanying neighbors like wild geranium

and yellow lady's slipper.

The ephemerals are going strong at Wildwood as well. A few trilliums are hanging on, along with both common and white violets. 

Perhaps my favorite see-it-while-you-can beauty our woods, though, is mayapple, currently covering hillsides throughout its range. A swath of mayapple leaves may not produce much reaction from the average human viewer,

but there is something magical about a flower found underneath the leaves, not bothering to flaunt itself for the likes of us.

It's almost enough to make a person believe in fairies.