NATURE IN MARCH : CHEEKY CHIVES and GREEN HEARTS

Getting Mixed Signals from Mother Nature

Its said that March comes in like an lion and departs like a lamb...but this March didn't get that message.  Today (March 30, 2020) is cold and blustery here on eastern Long Island’s north shore.  The sky is a slaty gray with low stratus clouds, and a cold damp east wind encouraged me to engage my winter hat and gloves as well as a heavy winter coat for my morning walk. 

The trunks and branches of our bare trees made dark twisted and tangled  silhouettes against the dull leaden sky.  My choice of winter clothes seemed appropriate to me.  But our wild birds had other ideas. That made me feel out of tune with the season.

Seeming to ignore the incidentals of cold and lowering clouds a cardinal called cheerily and musically nearby, and to insure me that it was not just a chance event —-another answered just as gaily from over the hill.  A flock of grackles foraged busily on my neighbor’s lawn.  A Robin twittered in annoyance and flew off from its  worm listening and gathering as I  approached to closely.   A song sparrow’s call seemed to underscore the fact that regardless of the chill and gloom our avian visitors knew it was Spring and were not going to give up their busy lives to a lion-like departure of March. 

Our feathered friends and forest trees pay no heed to incidental fluctuations in weather as we urbanized humans do.  It is the length of day, and intensity of light—and as well,  the absence of overnight frosts that govern their lives.  

So though garbed in winter, I did find undeniable evidences of Spring elsewhere too—like in that distinct circular reddish pattern on the roadway and drive underneath the Red Maple trees.  Above, though there were no leaves as yet one could see (if looking carefully) the small red flowers which would soon turn into the twinned red tinged whirligigs (samaras) that “helicopter” a long way off in a good breeze.  Today the little red flowers  some make it here’s female falling to earth to settle like a red carpet.

And I  can not ignore the lovely Buttercups (Ranunculus sp) sprouting with luxurious abandon everywhere in my garden—offering us their lovely bright green leaves and shiny-yellow  petals—but making one feel an ingrate wishing they would find a better quarter in some weedy row far away. 

Then too,  on almost every lawn edge and fence line one sees the bright, jaunty yellow sprays of Forsythia our most prominent  harbinger of warm weather to come and not far behind on tended lawns—the magnificent Magnolia with its bulging buds tinged with violent and white and promise of exhubersnt blooms.  Today to join these harbingers I found two flowering cherry trees in full and glorious bloom.  I checked them closely to look and listen for insect life—but there was none yet.  

On the ground the earliest green to sprout above the carpet of dead oak and beech leaves were the cheeky chives, almost first to appear even through the snow. I watched them  grow from their appearance in late February as a few sparse and tentative green sprigs  into  vibrant dark green clumps.  Nearby,  the heart shaped leaves of the wild Blue Violet seemed to be nearly as early to sprout as the chives.  These dark “green hearts” appear almost everywhere that is undisturbed by human intervention.  Today, I noticed another early green sprouter joining  showing  among the chives and violets—the deeply lobed and fragrant leaves of the  Artemisia. It will grow into tall rank and fragrant weeds, over-towering its tiny companions of early spring.  

And just today the sprouts of Heal all (Prunella vulgris) made their appearance among the chives and violet clumps.  

Perhaps tomorrow will bring is the lamb of March departure.  We’ll see.