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Golden Ragwort - first blooms |
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On March 28, 2011, I took photos of the flowers, shrubs, and trees in my yard and
wrote about them in a blog post so that I would have a record of botanical progress to have for year-to-year comparison. Well, as I said in last weekend's post about a
Mourning Cloak Butterfly, 2012 has been a year for the record books. Today, when I looked around the yard, I saw Golden Ragwort beginning to bloom and it is pictured here. (The photo of Golden Ragwort in full bloom that I inserted in
another post last year was taken on April 19, 2011!) So, yes indeed, things are blooming earlier.
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Pulmonaria (Lungwort) |
Another plant that I mentioned was blooming on March 28, 2011
in last year's post was Pulmonaria, or Lungwort. Like daffodils, which have been blooming for several weeks now, the Lungwort is native to Europe and Asia. I've watched these plants with interest, of course, (my yard was appropriately full of blooming
Daffodils on St. David's Day) but they are not native to North America and I've really been paying closer attention to my native plants. I want to see how they are reacting to climate change. (In which, the
polls say, more people now believe.)
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Wild Columbine |
Another native plant that I saw sending up shoots and preparing to bloom on
March 28 last year was Wild Columbine. Yes, the same plant in my yard is just about at the same point in its preparation to bloom this year, but more than 3 weeks earlier. In
another post from last year, I noted that I was enjoying watching Wild Columbine bloom in April.
The botanical progress that I documented last year showed trees leafing at the same time that the native plants were blooming. I'm not seeing that this year, but the buds are fat. Any day now.
My daughter is getting married in 3 weeks. Will the Dogwoods and other trees be leafing out by then? I do remember that on my first wedding day, 28 years ago on Derby Day in early May, the Dogwoods were beautiful in Williamsburg!