The Greens of Winter

A January thaw is pretty typical here... it seems we have one almost every winter.  I like to take advantage of a break in the cold weather.  It's nice to spend a few hours outside without feeling frozen.  The temperature was 45 degrees when I headed out to tromp around the swamp and woods today - a real heat wave!

However, though the warmth was lovely, the other meteorological conditions were not so great, unless you like it foggy and dark.  (At least it wasn't raining!) 

I had the afternoon free, so I thought, why not visit some of my favorite spots? 

When I started out, I didn't think it was very likely I would find much to photograph on this drab day.  But then only a little distance farther along the edge of the swamp I noticed this:

Wow, was the moss happy on a day like today! 

There's not a lot of green in the winter woods, but that makes what there is stand out even more against the browns and greys.

 Mosses, certainly, looked green as could be, but so did the ferns.  

Christmas ferns, with their little stocking-shaped leaflets, stay green all winter.  In the upper right-hand corner of the next photo, if you look closely, you can also see the spores covering the back of a fertile frond.

Marginal Woodferns are also evergreen, though they tend to be a little more worn-looking than Christmas ferns by January.  They are still pretty though!

Ferns, of course, don't have flowers.  They reproduce from spores or by underground rhizomes.  

The next plants I saw are "allies" of ferns, according to my Fern field guide.  They don't have flowers either.

This plant is known by the common names Club Moss or Ground Pine.  They are neither a moss or a pine.... which is just one example of why common names can be confusing!  So, every living thing has been given one scientific name.  And one of the very first scientific names I learned (years ago!) was Lycopodium.  How do I remember it if I learned it all those years ago, you ask?  Well, the person who taught me said, "people in clubs like to talk, hence they 'like a podium'.  (Lycopodium) Get it? Now you won't forget it, either!

This one is Lycopodium obscurum or Tree Club Moss.  They do look like a grove of tiny trees, I think.  Like ferns, they spread from underground rhizomes, and they also produce spores on top of their stem on a part called a strobilus.  That's the end of our botany lesson for today.

There are some flower-producing plants that are evergreen in the winter woods, too.

Partridgeberry, that I've written about before.  Click here to read more about them.

Also, Hepatica--

In just a few more months, they will be one of our first wildflowers to bloom.  (You can click here to read a post featuring their lovely flowers).  But, meanwhile, seeing their pretty leaves here and there in the woods brightened my walk. 

There were some other green leaves in the woods, but not too many.  Next is some Bedstraw peeking out from under the brown leaves.

As you can see, the 45 degree weather had melted most, but not all of the snow.  As it often seems to be in the fog, the woods was very quiet today except for 'drip, drip... drip'.

A few Chickadees followed me around and scolded me.  A White-breasted Nuthatch was the only other bird I heard.  That's January for you.  

As I headed back for the house, the weather hadn't changed.  It was still foggy and dark.

But my spirits had been lifted by the patches of green I had seen.  Then, as I wrote this and the darkness of night was descending, a Great-horned Owl was calling... loudly and close-by enough that I could hear it from inside our house.  It seems the woods may not have been as unoccupied as it appeared this afternoon!

Someplace Cool and Green and Shady

That's the place to look right now for some interesting and beautiful flowers.  I've been wanting to write about these flowers for awhile.  They are some of my favorites, and they are also ones that are often overlooked.  So it's time for them to have the spotlight!  Come with me to a cool and shady spot and we'll take a close look at Partridgeberry.

 This is the kind of place to look, but we're going to have to look closer.

In that photo, you can see two tiny white flowers.  Those are what we are looking for.  I expected to see more in this spot, because this is where I took this photo last November:

There are many teeny-tiny green berries, so by the fall I expect that spot will be bright with berries again.  But for now, we'll have to look elsewhere to see more flowers.

Here's a good place.... there are even still buds coming.  The buds and flowers are always in twos.  

Up close, they are adorably fuzzy!

Two flowers do not equal two berries though.  If both flowers are pollinated, they will grow into one berry with two "dimples" that show it came from two ovaries.  Look closely and you can see this in the next photo.

Here's a close up of a green berry from today.

 I think one of the reasons I like Partridgeberry so much is that I find that fascinating (yes, I guess I am often fascinated by 'simple' things... like two flowers making one berry!)  

Another reason is nostalgic.  I have good memories of my mother and I checking on the Partridgeberry plants my grandmother had transplanted into our woods on the farm where I grew up.  I was only 3 when my grandmother died so I don't remember her, but she was a great lover of plants and so I have memories connected to her through the plants she left behind.  The Partridgeberry she planted was always flourishing when my Mom and I looked for it on our walks to the woods, and I hope it still is.

Another memory I have of Partridgeberry is from my first job after I graduated from college back in the '70s.  At Christmas time, the nursery where I worked (which specialized in native plants) sold terrariums and berry bowls.  A berry bowl is a glass container filled with sphagnum moss and partridgeberries.  The terrariums were fun to make and we used some berries in them (see here for my post on making a 'winter garden') but the berry bowls were very tedious! (Imagine filling a jar with berries which each had to be placed just right in the moss so they would show from the outside).  Even now, I shudder to think of the partridgeberry vines that were pulled up to provide all those berries.  This is what they looked like. 

I think they are a thing of the past, which certainly would be good for Partridgeberry plants!

Partridgeberry is a beautiful plant all year long.  It gets high marks for its' evergreen foliage and bright red berries in the winter...

and if you take a walk in the woods right now to escape the hot sun, you may enjoy the pretty flowers.

It is very easy to transplant and since it's quite common it's not a problem to move a little bit for your own garden or woods like my grandmother did.   Here's a link to a good article about about Partridgeberry and how to grow it--  from the Brooklyn Botanical Garden.   




 

Winter Gardening

A major winter storm is forecast for our area.  They are predicting lots of snow.  So, of course, there are things to do to prepare!  Stock up on milk and bread.... beat the storm!  I was racing to beat the storm this afternoon, too.  But I was not at the store, I was out in the woods, collecting moss.  That's right, moss!

Remember when we had a couple of 45 degree days back in January?  As I was walking in our woods on one of those days, I was admiring the beautiful green mosses.  I thought it would be nice to make a terrarium but I didn't have a good container.  Well, today while I was shopping, I found one. 

Collecting moss and a few other things this afternoon for my 'winter garden' was slightly challenging.  It's really easier to make one when the ground is not frozen!  

But I was able to brush aside the snow to get some partridgeberry and club moss.

Normally I would dig up small plants for a terrarium, but since the ground was frozen, I decided to improvise and clip off a few things.  I snipped the club moss and some hemlock sprigs with scissors.  I also grabbed some small rocks and pieces of wood.

This photo shows all the things I used -- my container, some gravel, soil-less potting mix, charcoal, and all the things I had collected from the woods.  Oh, and a tiny plastic deer!

I started with about an inch of gravel for drainage, and a few small pieces of charcoal to keep it smelling sweet.

Then some 'soil' which I mounded a bit in the center.  The moss came next, lightly pressed on the soil.

I added some rocks and stuck the club moss stems and a piece of hemlock down in the soil, and then put my little deer in place.

Now I feel like I'm ready for the snowstorm!  I have my own tiny green woods to enjoy while the snow flies outside.

I'm happy with how it turned out.  It will definitely help me get thru the rest of winter!