wild bleeding heart
owning too many things makes me feel heavy and weighted down, and lingering messiness in my environment leads to a feeling of messiness inside my own head. i like the promise and possibilities of an empty shelf and a clean table top, and as a result, i do regular clutter clearing sweeps throughout my home. however, i had never done that outside, in the three acre woodland that surrounds us until several weekends ago. i had convinced myself that letting nature be herself was the best way to manage the woods. let her be wild, i thought. but instead what gradually happened was an invasion of nonnative and aggressive understory plants (think European buckthorn, raspberries, blackberries) who performed a slow-motion land grab, and then claimed squatters’ rights. so with time on my hands, thanks to shelter-in-place, i decided to clutter-clear our woods. i of all people should not have been surprised at the result, but all i have to say is wow. steve and i are daily discovering little deposits of native plants that had been buried by the invaders and are now lifting their heads, wondering if it’s safe to come out again. just this week we discovered: wild ginger, trout lily, bloodroot, trilium, hepatica, jack-in-the-pulpit, may apple, two kinds of anemones, wild geranium, gooseberries, and marsh marigold. these dutchman’s breeches (aka wild bleeding heart), were the prize find. i had always wanted to see this plant, and never new i had it, quite literally, in my backyard. i am currently scanning the horizon for more patches of buckthorn. they’d better watch out.
dutchman’s breeches flowers and leaves (Dicentra cucullaria)
things that work
my son is increasingly fascinated by how fashion works, from conceptual musings about what becomes popular and why, to questions about how the shoulder of a shirt acquires its particular shape. i said, joe. there are things that have worked forever. one of them is a french curve. one of those old wooden drafting tools that helps to draw just exactly the right arc. these juvenile maidenhair ferns look as if they were designed by french curves. or, more likely, they look as if they were the inspiration behind the first prototype of a french curve.
immature maidenhair fern fronds (Adiantum)
random acts of gratuitous kindness
our friend paul stopped by on his way home from wisconsin. our house is a little out of his way, and. he didn’t really have any news for us. except that the wild leeks were up in the woods around his cabin. and he had picked a few. and a few extra for us. “got a class to teach,” he said, as he pulled his truck door shut. and his tail lights glowed through a haze of kicked up dust, all the way down our driveway
wild ramps (Allium tricoccum)
dirigibles
the size of these magnolia blossoms remind me dirigibles. improbable, clumsy, ponderously graceful.
magnolia blossom buds
happy explosions
spring in my back yard is a party and it looks as if this is my invitation.
maple blossoms
I have not seen dutchman’s breeches since a sophomore year biology class spring field trip in the woods near my high school – still as precious as I remember . . .
That’s so awesome. I’m a daily reader but I’ve never commented until now. I agree with your sentiments, and like you I have a very large (several acres) wooded area behind my home owned by the subdivision. It feels like it is all ours though. There is a lot of invasive honeysuckle and vitus that while lovely in their own right, usually crowd out the natives. My husband is better than I at identifying things but since clearing out a lot of honeysuckle last summer, there is a preponderance of may apples I can see from the kitchen window. I’ll show you written list to see if any of those things grow in our area (both zone and soil type, our woods is very low bordering on a creek so it stays fairly hydrated much of the year).
What fun.