Tangled Branches: Cultivated

happenings in and around my zone 6b gardens in northern Virginia and in central Virginia

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Best Crocus and a Cool Tool

I like all my crocuses, but I like 'Ruby Giant' the best.

A couple of warm days, a thundershower and voila! beautiful dark purple flowers magically appear. The color draws me to it - so vivid and bright after gray and brown winter.

With the warmer weather coming up, and having experienced some GRTH over the winter, my thoughts are turning to.....exercise. Not a lot of exercise, just a walk around the neighborhood. If I'm going to call it exercise, maybe I should measure it and record it in a spreadsheet and make charts of my weight vs. how far I walked and estimated number of calories burned and....oh, forget it - too complicated. But there's this really cool tool - RunningMap.com - for measuring the distance and elevation changes of your route. You give it an address or street name and it gives you a map. You can show just the map or a satellite photo or a map/satellite hybrid. Then start clicking away to draw your route. It measures the distance covered in a straight line between each click and gives you a cumulative total. Fun, especially for a map geek like me. I could sit here and draw walking routes all day...

Labels: crocus, tools

Friday, February 08, 2008

Next Crocus

Crocus ancyrensis (meaning of or from Ankara) 'Golden Bunch'. The flowers are on the small side, but the gold color is intense. Here's another picture of them in their native habitat, where they apparently bloom in March, or did in 2006 anyway. Those flowers look larger than mine, but it's hard to compare. There's an acorn cap in my photo (and we don't have any humongous acorns) so you can get an idea of the flower size. They may be smaller than they could be, owing to the fact they're planted right next to that oak tree in an area where the birds like to scratch and feed. Squirrels too. One of the problems I have with this crocus is that the squirrels like to chew off the flowers.

I noticed in the Turkish photo some interesting seed pod remnants, looking something like Lunaria, but much smaller. Wonder what those are....

The crocuses I showed you earlier are finally doing their bunching thing after our absurdly warm weather this week. Prior to that they were only opening one or two flowers each day.

And lastly, the Galanthus nivalis snowdrops are starting to bloom. These were newly planted a couple of years ago and they seem happy in this spot. Keeping my fingers crossed on that.

Labels: crocus, snowdrops

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Signs of Spring

Tangled Branches January Photos
Crocus sieberi 'Firefly'
First crocus! Yesterday I noticed a slim pale purple bud and today it was open. Last year this was blooming on January 4, so it may not be a reliable indicator of spring.

But here are a few more signs of spring I noticed today:

There was a robin in the backyard.
There was a chipmunk running along the neighbors' fence.
There was a fly buzzing around inside the house.
I went to the garden center and bought some seeds because I was too impatient to wait for the mail ordered ones.

Labels: crocus, seasons

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Spring or Winter?

Every time I declare spring, it snows. I was just thinking of declaring spring after last weekend in the country, so snow is in the forecast.

Last weekend in Central Virginia, the weather was warm enough to open the windows and air out the house. The sound of spring peepers (or something) drifted in on the breeze (more like a gale, actually). I wandered around the woods looking for wildflowers or fiddleheads, but it was still too early. The maple trees are starting to bud out. The birds were singing noticeably more than the previous weekend. Our well-fed suburban birds have been singing for weeks, but I think the rural birds were still just trying to stay alive. Now the bugs are starting to come out and they can think of other activities. I didn't see any deer, but did find their tracks in the mud, however those were nowhere near the recently planted woodies. So far, so good.

Back to those spring peepers for a moment. According to what I've read on the internet, spring peepers are nocturnal. So then, what was I hearing during the daylight? They started about 10:30 in the morning and went until late afternoon. The sound was coming from the brushy side of the stream. I tried to look for the critters, but could see nothing. I found a site with sounds of a dozen frogs and toads, but none of these sound like what I remember. So the identity of the croaking creatures remains to be discovered.

In Northern Virginia, a few more crocus flowers popped open yesterday. I do mean popped open. Sunday I swear there was nothing there - hardly even any leaves; Monday - flowers. And some of the very early narcissus are open. Pictures soon.

A rare bird stopped by this afternoon - a pine warbler. I guess they really aren't all that rare, but this is only the second time I've seen one in the backyard. Not rare at all, but very welcome, a large flock of robins was rummaging through the leaves in the woods late in the afternoon.

Did I mention there's a snow advisory for tomorrow?

Labels: birds, critters, crocus, narcissus, snow

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