Recovering

 After a week spent indoors and one illness after another, a late afternoon recovery walk to Prospect Park brought me by a most sweet-smelling Camellia on Eastern Parkway, grass catching the last light of the day in front of the Brooklyn Central library and a massive tree stump in the park that looked like it had a story or two to tell.

The air was cold but the sun on my face felt so much like a warm welcome that it seemed liked it had to be trying to comfort me. I don't formally practice a faith, but you wouldn't be far off if you said I was something of a sun worshipper.

It's Been A While

since the last Pokeweed bloom and it's been a while since I found some time to stop and admire the roadside wilds of Brooklyn, but I remembered to take a minute today to do that on the bike ride down to the garden.

Under an Umbelliferae and a A Blue Sky

 or next to a patch of some by the side of the road perhaps,

is where i want to be. To me there is something so lovely about the color of the curly dock as it browns and goes to seed this time of year among the Queen's Anne's Lace blooms. (This isn't the country, just the edge of Brooklyn, by the side of the road and above in an old airfield.)

New Leaves on the Block

Really new because not only are they the first of the season, the tree itself was only planted last fall. Looks like some kind of Linden. Just a few leaves out and many fat buds. It's been hard to follow the order of things this season because the warm temperature has pushed so many plants ahead and so much is happening all at once. But even in this speediest of springs, there are small moments in the lives of plants to catch while just walking down the city street. So this year, the eating of our first salad tonight out of Joe's cold frame and the earliest leaves of a Linden coincide. Not exactly a serious phenological observation, but we'll take it.

On The Street Where I Live

The Callery Pears are blooming. This happens every year of course in early spring, but it is only in the last few years that I have known exactly what I was looking at. And I owe my knowledge of certain trees directly to the simple act of sowing some vegetable seeds in a community garden. Falling in love with growing vegetables opened my eyes more fully to the plants around me and instead of vaguely knowing what I pass, I have a name to call things now. For me, this has been fantastically orienting and with each thing I learn, I just want to learn more.

The First Leaf-Out Close to Home

Those are leaves up there all right. The first New York City Street tree to leaf out on my block is Prunus padus, the European Birdcherry. (not the greatest pics snapped with my laundry in tow, admittedly, but they will do for marking the occasion this year) And the Callary Pears look like they're itching to get going soon too.

First tree to leaf out on the block this year just shy of mid-March

On Bended Knees

at 615/Green weeding with Susan yesterday, we caught sight of a trillium heralding an early spring. (link to Uli's beautiful pictures and informative post on this genus of plants from last year) Is it one transplanted from that awesome native ephemerals class at Brooklyn Botanic last spring? Perhaps. With construction of the new Native Flora Garden extension being a focus over at Brooklyn Botanic this year, I don't imagine this class will be offered again. But the sight of that trillium has me in the mind for a walk through Native Flora at BBG sometime really soon with my eyes peeled towards the ground for emerging ephemerals.

Just a Little Color

It isn't true that there is no color to be found in winter. In every season there is color, both subtle and intense.

If It Looks Like a Pea

                            Seed pods of Albizia julibrissin (Silk Tree, Mimosa), Park Slope, Brooklyn

then it just might be related. When you start out to know the names of plants and identify the things growing around you, the task can seem overwhelming. If you've never paid attention before, you might find yourself bewildered at every corner, even in a densely urban area like New York City known more for its steel skyscrapers and architecture than for its teeming plant life. But there are street trees everywhere and landscaping plants around apartment buildings and a lot to see if you keep your eyes open and focused on more than the pavement. So you start with what you've got in the way of knowledge and make associations based on what you know. It's pretty likely when you see something above your head that reminds you of a snow pea pod that you are looking at a tree in the same family as the pea. If that's only as far as you get, it's not so bad. It's a big world with a lot of plants and you can't learn everything at once. In this case, the pea pods belong to the Albizia julibrissin, which has more than one common name in the US. And while it is planted for decorative reasons, it is also a tree that has naturalized in Brooklyn and more southern parts of the US, and in some places it is labelled as an invasive species.

Oh and Bark Too

On a sunny, somewhat blustery day in winter, here's to some good-looking bark to lay eyes on. I'm kind of in love with the bark of a good Crepe Myrtle (Lagerstroemia), big or small. (Below, a Bonsai version seen at Longwood Gardens. Man, if you really like a certain tree, does it ever blow you mind to see it as a Bonsai) There's something about that bark that makes me want to lay hands on it.

The Garden, Moving and Curious

The Moving Garden, Brooklyn Museum

Last minute shopping at the Brooklyn Museum, I passed "The Moving Garden" an installation that encourages of all things, people to give the gift of a flower as a participatory work of art. And then I bought a work of art for my young gardening niece Emma, this beautiful book The Curious Garden by Peter Brown, where both a young boy and his garden are the curious charactors. This kid likes to draw pictures too.

Because You Always Start From Where You Are



Fruit of Callery Pear Silhouette on a gray day near winter, my street in Brooklyn

Every journey or adventure begins from the same place, where you are. So it makes sense that when you start out to know the names of trees and more about plants that you start near home on the street where you live.

Weedy Lot Wandering

What remains of Evening Primrose? I'm assuming these are fruit or seed pods.

You can either become completely overwhelmed by all there is to learn about plants throughout the seasons and get discouraged, or you can choose to be inspired by all the not-knowing and do a little wandering and exploring. I choose the latter. If I knew everything, there wouldn't be anything left to discover. And then a weedy lot in Brooklyn would have much less potential for adventure.

A Lot Can Happen in 24 hours

Gingko leaves late October

and that's not always good. Yesterday I ought to have been checking out fall color, with the sound of leaves crunching underfoot, not slogging through slushy streets. And while the storm will not be as dramatic as the October blizzard in Buffalo a few years back, which really devestated deciduous trees unable to hold the load of snow and leaves, it's still a strange sight and a little disturbing to see so many leaf-covered trees covered in snow.

Rebloomers

I'm pretty sure Joe's lavender only reblooms because of the timing of his deadheading and harvesting. The Viburnums in Prospect Park and on Eastern Parkway on the otherhand are doing it on their own (I think), but I could be wrong. Pretty sure I saw these same leathery-leaved Viburnums blooming last fall too.

Edgeworthia, Again

We passed two Edgeworthia (Paperbush) plants yesterday on a walk to Prospect Park and admired those amazing flower buds which make this plant so beautiful to lay eyes on in the winter months. Susan had just planted a very tiny one in the front yard at a client's home and was wishing that it was more impressive to see right now. (Currently it looks like a few wee branches with some leaves and small buds.) But if it survives and thrives, it will grow into something grand, and be totally worth the wait.

An Alphabetical Autumn Stroll

A is for Asters with Amsonia. (even if the asters are no longer called asters botanically) An A+ combo for fall, as seen in the border outside of Brooklyn Botanic, museum side.


B is for the blueberry bush around the corner. What beats a plant that produces both fruit and fall color?


and C is for the cordate (heart-shaped) leaves of a Redbud cultivar, maybe 'Forest Pansy'. (Just the youngest leaves at the tips of the branches were this vibrant red, so I don't think it's the straight species, which is more typically yellow in the fall.)

All natives to North America and with the exception of the Amsonia, which grows wild in Oklahoma and Arkansas, all northeast natives to boot. Not too shabby a showing for a few square blocks in Brooklyn.

If It Has to Get Cold

Chasmanthium latifolium (Northern Sea Oats) seed head beginning to turn , Brooklyn

at least there will be some color first. Here the pretty seed heads of some Chasmanthium latifolium I passed on my way to the farmers market today. The color is subtle right now and kind of captures the feeling of anticipation of full-on Autumn for me. If I was growing this shade-tolerant East Coast native grass, I'd probably be cutting some of those seed heads to bring in for a bouquet.

Riding Past the Last Blooming Thing of September

Groundsel Tree  (Baccharis halimifolia) near the Belt Parkway, Brooklyn

How sweet that the last thing I noticed blooming in September is a native. And the kind of thing you might find in the dunes or by the side of the road, two places I might go awandering to boot. I'm pretty sure I saw this species also known as Eastern Baccharis on Eastern Long Island in mid-September and noticed that it was budding, getting ready to flower soon.

Lean and Loafe Like your Uncle Walt

You can reckon a thousand acres much, or the earth much, or the weedy patch of Brooklyn that you know and love well much. You can lean and loafe at your ease observing the flowering of a summer grass you pass. You can try to fetch the spirit of Brooklyn's own Whitman as you wander, missing him somewhere and searching another, and wonder if it isn't as true as ever that there will never be more perfection than there is now as the day he wrote his line. Rain or no rain, but we are hoping for a little less rain next week though.

*This post and a good part of its words and phrases were shamelessly stolen from Whitman's Song of Myself and tweaked into a little song of a late summer's day in Brooklyn with a break from the rain. (I'm not sure why I'm on an historic bent these days, but it will probably pass like all things.)

Where my  volunteer Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) is at today.