Well today is the actual Vernal Equinox with equal day and night, but last Saturday you could still find snow on the ground. Despite that it was a beautiful day and so I headed out to the Tyler Arboretum to see if any early spring flowers might be out. The arboretum is definitely worth the price of admission and I imagine in full spring and summer there are some quite spectacular blooms.
Sadly for me as it is an arboretum, excepting for their native plants sections, most of the plants you find are imported or horticultural variates, including the plants in bloom. I found beautiful horticultural varieties of witch hazel and a paper bush getting ready to bloom, with nice name plates (many plants were nicely named, yet weren’t in bloom or sprouted). Behind the main office there was a carpet of crocus, winter aconite, and common snowdrops. Down by a creek running through the arboretum some skunk cabbage could be seen poking through. Finally, while they may be about year round, nothing says spring like American robins flitting about. Even the several ponds on the grounds showed signs of tadpoles and amphibians to come. I will definitely be returning as the weather continues to improve.
phototerrascientia 