It’s an odd time of year. We had a freeze after an afternoon high in the 70s. Lawns are brown, but green blades are just beginning to come up. It’ll be spring, I guess, when I hear the first neighbor to give in cranks a lawnmower.
Last week, the dogwoods put on white blossoms. We had bare limbs one day and limbs heavy with blooms with next.
The dogwoods were about a week behind Magnolia liliiflora, a native of China that gardeners in the Atlanta area have planted everywhere. The flowers range from a pale pink to magenta.
We also have pear trees with lovely white flowers — not only in yards but deep in the forest. I take it these are Callery pear, Pyrus calleryana, another native of Southeast Asia. It was popular with landscape gardeners. The birds spread the seeds as thoroughly as the apostles spread the gospel.
Cardamine diphylla, a small plant in the mustard family, is putting out little white flowers with four petals. It’s called toothwort, but I think the common name around here is crinkleroot.
Beech trees don’t lose last year’s leaves until the new leaves come out. You still see stands of those lovely leaves, ranging from copper to washed khaki, so weathered they’re almost white. The other day I saw a stand that had a red maple mixed in. The maple had wisps of red flowers standing out against the tans of the beeches.
The woods were quiet, and I didn’t move. I just looked.
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