Primarily Phenology
Apr. 17th, 2004 02:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pameladeanSome of you have seen this already, since I've been fooling with custom lists and coming to the conclusion that, for me, with the way my mind works or doesn't, such lists are probably just impossible.
I've added some remarks about birds to the end, so it's not exactly the same entry. Just to be more annoying, that's why I did it.
Immediately post-Minicon phenology differed very little from pre-Minicon phenology, since, for practically the first time in recorded memory, the weather became cold and discouraging for the duration of the weekend, so that I did not fret perpetually to go home and look at my flowers.
Things are burgeoning now, though.
Blooming:
purple crocus
yellow crocus
blue-white crocus
winter aconite in the front yard, very copiously. Hmmm.
all the scilla
waterlily tulips
dandelion
ice pansy
leafy:
violet
hairy bellflower
coreopsis
dame's rocket
rudbeckia
Shasta daisy
Henry Kelsey rose
wild rose
neighbor's lilac; it also has deep purple flower heads just beginning to form, very small and very purple
mock orange
all the daylilies
anemone -- I thought I'd lost it; yay!
Just up:
true lilies
hosta
The grass is green where I've watered, otherwise quite discouraged.
I've got so many volunteers in the yard that I am about to go out and move them into the beds to which the hollyhocks are not returning. I'll plant some hollyhock seeds later, too.
In the evenings when I go out to look at the planets, chickadees are still yelling "Phoebe!" and cardinals are whistling. The mourning doves, silent or maybe absent all winter, are doing their Hoo-wah hoo hoo hoo call, which I love partly because doves sound exactly that way at sunset in the Sonoran Desert.
A couple of days ago the flickers came through. There were maybe half a dozen of them on the lawn, walking about and stabbing their bills into the turf exactly as if it were a tree, with that woodpecker motion. I hoped they'd stick around, but I have had only the one sighting.
I think the juncoes have left.
Pamela
I've added some remarks about birds to the end, so it's not exactly the same entry. Just to be more annoying, that's why I did it.
Immediately post-Minicon phenology differed very little from pre-Minicon phenology, since, for practically the first time in recorded memory, the weather became cold and discouraging for the duration of the weekend, so that I did not fret perpetually to go home and look at my flowers.
Things are burgeoning now, though.
Blooming:
purple crocus
yellow crocus
blue-white crocus
winter aconite in the front yard, very copiously. Hmmm.
all the scilla
waterlily tulips
dandelion
ice pansy
leafy:
violet
hairy bellflower
coreopsis
dame's rocket
rudbeckia
Shasta daisy
Henry Kelsey rose
wild rose
neighbor's lilac; it also has deep purple flower heads just beginning to form, very small and very purple
mock orange
all the daylilies
anemone -- I thought I'd lost it; yay!
Just up:
true lilies
hosta
The grass is green where I've watered, otherwise quite discouraged.
I've got so many volunteers in the yard that I am about to go out and move them into the beds to which the hollyhocks are not returning. I'll plant some hollyhock seeds later, too.
In the evenings when I go out to look at the planets, chickadees are still yelling "Phoebe!" and cardinals are whistling. The mourning doves, silent or maybe absent all winter, are doing their Hoo-wah hoo hoo hoo call, which I love partly because doves sound exactly that way at sunset in the Sonoran Desert.
A couple of days ago the flickers came through. There were maybe half a dozen of them on the lawn, walking about and stabbing their bills into the turf exactly as if it were a tree, with that woodpecker motion. I hoped they'd stick around, but I have had only the one sighting.
I think the juncoes have left.
Pamela
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no subject
Date: 2004-04-17 01:01 pm (UTC)B
Another sweaty tea break
Date: 2004-04-17 01:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-17 01:17 pm (UTC)Perhaps now would be a good time for water to be poured on your head.
Pamela
no subject
Date: 2004-04-17 01:19 pm (UTC)B
Re: Another sweaty tea break
Date: 2004-04-17 01:19 pm (UTC)Sorry, weird mood.
They're a pansy hybrid intended to be reliably frost-resistant, rather than intermittently so, as most pansies are. The intention seems to have been fulfilled. They were blooming last year when everything else was dead, and they came back this spring. The color range is pretty much like that of your basic fancy pansy, from dark purple through apricot and dark orange and into pale yellow and white.
Pamela
no subject
Date: 2004-04-17 01:20 pm (UTC)Pamela
no subject
Date: 2004-04-17 01:28 pm (UTC)B
Re: And another sweaty tea break *grin*
Date: 2004-04-17 02:13 pm (UTC)Thanks for the explanation; it seemed like the type of thing I _would_ have asked. OK, once more into the breach...
no subject
Date: 2004-04-17 03:44 pm (UTC)Blooming:
Wisteria - Best bloom ever! I'll never be afraid of rigorous pruning again
Dogwood, although one of the pair suffered ice damage during our storms in January and isn't looking very good.
The Siberian and Dutch irises in the front bed
Azalea
Aquilegia
Dicentra
Something red on a twiggy little shrub - a salvia, perhaps? I really need to call my sister ...
Way too much muscari - the stuff naturalizes overnight, and I need to pull some out before it chokes everything else
Random violets and violas, including a volunteer patch that's creeping across the back lawn, to my delight
Various double primroses Toni evidently stuck in last fall as a spring surprise.
Budding/nearly ready to bloom
Peonies, cream and ruby-red
French lavender. (The English variety blooms later)
Four-o'clocks, also weedlike in their habit, but I keep some of them because they're so pretty in the evenings
Getting off to a nice start
Crocosmia
The lone hosta
Assorted hardy fuchsias
The Japanese irises in the back iris bed
Star jasmine - it's actually getting awfully sprawl-ish, and I need to do something about that soon ...
Hollyhocks, back for the third year.
Done for the season and already needing a bit of cleanup
Daffodils, crocuses
Tulips (one last bloom is about to open
Camelia
Pieris
Daphne odora
Thundercloud plum tree, also damaged by the storm; it may have to come down this year. )-:
no subject
Date: 2004-04-17 05:52 pm (UTC)Otherwise, I am just eaten up with envy. You're far ahead of us.
On second thought, maybe not. I love early spring. This is being a good one so far. When I was weeding out the bed under the stairway window where I intend to plant new hollyhocks and also move some of the lawn volunteers, I saw that the Canada violets in that bed had buds as yet unopened. If the hail doesn't get them tonight, I'll expect to see them blooming tomorrow.
Pamela
no subject
Date: 2004-04-17 06:10 pm (UTC)Of course, it's not a race. (-:
I love early spring, too - and middle-to-late spring, which we finally seem to be having after a few weeks of exceedingly premature early summer-type weather that had all the gardeners fretting about drought. Now things are back to normal: the exhuberantly blossoming trees in a race to see whether they'll get to show off their finery before the petals all get knocked down by the next rain storm; days warm enough to tempt people to plant their tomatoes alternating with nights cold enough to kill them off. I'm biding my time; Toni says I'm not to plant till after May Day. But, oh, the starts at the farmers' market this morning were tempting ...
no subject
Date: 2004-04-17 06:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-17 07:17 pm (UTC)B
no subject
Date: 2004-04-17 07:27 pm (UTC)I agree that they sound much more like they're saying that. But according to my mother, they say "More rain, more rain." I couldn't help but wonder if that had something to do with her growing up here during the Dust Bowl.
How much do these calls change, I wonder? When I was a kid, I could never decide just what red-winged blackbirds sounded like. But now I know they sound like cell phones ringing.
Caroline
no subject
Date: 2004-04-18 11:26 am (UTC)Sam did recommended it, as I recall. Hmmmm.
Pamela
no subject
Date: 2004-04-18 01:29 pm (UTC)... you've asked the Red Cross to come by and organize them?
no subject
Date: 2004-04-18 03:03 pm (UTC)I was, however, much amused to hear Brewer's blackbirds singing in California in February, and to realize that they were very definitely related to redwings. More melodious, but with that same electronic buzzing and chiming effect. Eric just told me that he'd been into a wilderness preserve that featured both redwings and western meadowlarks, and that their calls too reflected their close relationship.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-19 12:00 pm (UTC)It's a pity it's not that easy. Man, the hairy bellflower alone could miraculously create democracy in Iraq and the motherwort could probably cure AIDS, if volunteering were all that it took.
Pamela