Snaptshot Week 9: 3/1-3/7 BIG BRADS

REPOST from last year, 3/1-3/7 2009


I am posting this again for a point of comparison.  We have just achieved this same state of full-balledness on the Bradford Pear this March 16, 2010 of this year.  So it looks like the clock of Spring is about one week to 10 days behind the bloom cycle of last year.



And this year the Japanese Mags are doing just fine!
a week behind.

Egg-on-a-stick, Bradford Pear

This week jettisoned us from the last (?) of winter to fully revved spring. Sunday and Monday morning (March 1 and 2) gave us temperatures in the twenties, which in turn deeply bruised the Japanese Magnolia, the trumpeters of Spring. By the end of the week we were pushing short sleeve shirts and 70 degrees.


Wounded Japanese Magnoia


The week was dominated by the presence of the Bradford Pear, which in the course of a week went from blossoming bones to full egg-son-a-stick flourish, and are -- as of end of week, starting to soften into pastel green. This week too, showcased the explosion of Red Maple, as they break into molten seed. To be honest, I had been puzzled by the identity of certain maples. No longer. The red maples announce themselves with great carmen force. Our sugar maples have yet to put out as much as a flower, but the blooming silver tips, mountain and beach maple types (see Maple page) tend to bloom then go to seed in muted tones of rust, straw, and olive. I also fully took in something I have seen, but not really cataloged. The maples appear to put on their spring garb in a pulse. First the maples build from colored tips to budding flower. As the flowers fade they also build into a stamen flourish. Then the stamens wither, and the whole tree appears to lose mass, going “backward” to an earlier winter look… then the withered floral parts explode in days, into large helicopter seed clumps.

Other activity at a glance:



Garden daffodils all over town
Forsythia and Japonica in full flourish, growing “green”
Cherry and Peach in light full flourish. (These appear to emerge just a few days after the Brads)
Elm trees, with heavy green mass (some of which may be floral)
Henbit, and that which is not henbit, in large patches.

As of yet unnamed ground and lawn flowers in thick patches. (See Lawn Dainties)

A yet unamed bush/shrub, with minature pear-like flowers and spikes woven in the wood.

(Unamed "snow" shrub, with pear-ish blooms and thorns)

First activity among the oaks, though a Huge Southern Red at the Capitol is leading the catkin pack. Fist showing of a Redbud tree. (Expect to see these break out next week

Many of the smaller White and Pin Oaks still with leaf.

"Roange" berry things continue leafless, and scattered along the highways.

"Rorange Berry"