Signs of Spring!

Witch hazel hybrid (Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Old Copper’)

Turtles sunning sp?

Witch hazel hybrid (Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Rubin’)

Tyler Arboretum grounds

American robin (Turdus migratorius)

Pine cone sp?

Witch hazel hybrid (Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Rubin’) 2

Skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus)

I think this is common snowdrop (Skunk cabbage (Galanthus nivalis)

Paper bush buds (Edgeworthia chrysantha)

3 winter flowers; crocus, winter aconite, and common snowdrop

Carpet of late winter/ early spring flowers

Crocus (Crocus sp?)

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.

Year in Nature Photography – Day 5

So I haven’t quite figured out what to do when traveling, but I did snap this picture yesterday with my cellphone, even if the post is today. Yesterday I happened to volunteer for the Delaware Center for Horticulture at their booth during the Delaware Home Show Exhibition. Next door was the University of Delaware Botanical Gardens booth and they had a flowering witch-hazel plant on display. Now you’ll notice I put sp?, while there is a native variety I am unsure whether this was the virginiana variety or not. Witch-hazel blooms in February and the bark is the source of the witch-hazel astringent you can find in drug stores. It seems that research into other medicinal applications of witch-hazel is bearing fruit with applications in anti-inflammatory and anti-viral medication. For more information on witch-hazel and the organizations I mentioned, check out the links following the picture

Witch-hazel (Hamamelis sp?) greenhouse grown

Information on Witch-hazel

http://www.stevenfoster.com/education/monograph/witchhazel.html

The Delaware Center for Horticulture

http://www.thedch.org/

University of Delaware Botanical Gardens

http://ag.udel.edu/udbg/