Thinking Citizen Blog — The Five Layers of Spring Flowers in New England — the Joys of Phenology (Part One)
Thinking Citizen Blog: Wednesday is Climate Change, the Environment, and Sustainability Day
Today’s Topic: The Five Layers of Spring Flowers in New England — the Joys of Phenology (Part One)
Last time, the world through the eyes of an octopus. The time before the charming songs of three heralds of spring in New England — the American Robin, the Chickadee, and the Northern Cardinal. Today, a crusading mission to turn you all into passionate phenologists — observers and students of seasonal change in biological life cycles such as the flowering leafing and fruiting of plants or the first appearance of migratory birds. Every day is a great day to sharpen your focus on the captivating marvels of nature and to share what you see and hear with others.
The five layers of spring flowers are the ground-huggers (eg. scilla, flox, blue bells), the knee-highs (tulips, daffodils), the bushes (forsythia, azalea), the ornamental trees (cherries, dogwoods, magnolias) and the giants (maple, willows, oak, beech).
Quintuple your joy by savoring each. Anew. Every day. Breathe deep. Pause. Snap a photo. Share. Preserve the gift. Forever.
Have you ever walked the Azalea Trail in Mobile, Alabama? Been to the Daffodil Festival on Nantucket? Been to the Netherlands in tulip season?
If you are a seasoned gardener, please share your favorite flowers, experiences, ways of arranging your garden for maximum beauty and joy as the weeks progress.
Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
THE GROUND-HUGGERS — scilla (below), blue bells, grape hyacinth, phlox
1. Scilla have 30 to 80 species and come in white, pink, blue, and purple.
2. Phlox come in 68 species. Colors range from blue and white to pink and purple as well.
3. Violets are a genus of the family Viola which has 680 species. “The common blue violet ( Viola sororia) is the state flower of the US State of Illinois. There is also a famous poem that refers to violets. It goes “Roses are red, violets are blue”, and then the poet adds his or her own lines to it. It is also February’s birth flower.”
NB: “Some Viola species are perennial plants, some are annual plants, and a few are small shrubs. Many species, varieties and cultivars are grown in gardens for their flowers. “In horticulture, the term pansy is used for the multi-colored cultivars often used in bedding by professional gardeners. The terms ‘viola’ and “violet’ are normally used for small-flowered annuals or perennials, and the wild species.”
THE KNEE-HIGHS: Tulips, Daffodils (aka Narcissus, Jonquils, a genus of the Amaryllis family) Did you have to memorize Wordsworth poem about daffodils? It’s never too late!
1. “I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high o’er vales and hills, when all at once I saw a crowd A host of golden daffodils, beside the lake, beneath the trees, fluttering and dance in the breeze.”
2. “Continuous as the stars that shine and twinkle on the milky way, they stretched in never-ending line along the margin of a bay: ten thousand saw I at a glance, tossing their heads in sprightly dance.”
3. “The waves beside them danced; but they out-did the sparkling waves in glee, a poet could not but be gay. in such a jocund company: I gazed — and gazed — but little thought what wealth the show had brought:
NB: “For oft, when on my couch I lie in vacant or in pensive mood, they flash upon that inward eye which is the bliss of solitude; and then my heart with pleasure fills, and dances with the daffodils.” The 48th Annual Nantucket “Daffodil Festival” took place last week. Did you go?
THE SHOULDER-HEIGHTS — Forsythia, Azaleas
1. For me, growing up in Washington DC, the yellow of the forsythia was the color of spring.
2. There are 11 species of forsythia.
3. But let’s not forget about azaleas (below). Azaleas are of the genus Rhododendron. There is an “Azalea Trail” in Mobile, Alabama. Have you been?
Violet (plant) — Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Azalea | Description, Rhododendron, Major Species, & Facts
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?
A LINK TO THE LAST FOUR YEARS OF POSTS ORGANIZED BY THEME:
PDF with headlines — Google Drive
ATTACHMENT BELOW -
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)
NB: Palestine Orion (Decision) — let’s exchange Orions, let’s find Rumi’s field (“Beyond all ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. Meet me there” Rumi, 13 century Persian Sufi mystic)
YOUR TURN
Please share the coolest thing you learned in the last week related to climate change or the environment.
Or the coolest, most important thing you learned in your life related to climate change that the rest of us may have missed. Your favorite chart or table perhaps…
This is your chance to make some one’s day. Or to cement in your own mind something that you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than otherwise about something dear to your heart.
