The milkweeds are starting to bloom and the milkweed is important to many species, especially the monarch larvae which appears to feed exclusively on milkweeds and the monarch butterflies need the milkweed to lay their eggs.
Some people eat the milkweed flowers, using them in stir-fly, soup, casseroles and other dishes (after you wash the bugs out first). I prefer to just look at them and take pictures of the blossoms instead of eating them and I will leave them for the monarchs butterflies instead.
There was more fireworks last night and now this morning, mother nature is providing some booming noise too. But maybe later today, the sun will shine again on the orange lilies so they can show off their really bright orange color instead of the muted orange under the gray skies this morning.
The Orange Hawkweeds might like all the rain since they are blooming where I haven’t been able to mow the lawn. But the plant isn’t supposed to be on my lawn as it is an evasive species and it is becoming a problem in many areas. And while the rain is helping it survived from mowing, the blossoms close up in shade so they aren’t helping the insects during all the cloudy days.
A hillside of lupines are very pretty but they also change poor soils into a higher quality by fixing nitrogen and fertilizing barren lands. And there is a lot more to their pretty looks as they also have been used for food for over 6000 years, although never reaching the same status of a legume as soybeans or dry peas. Among the nearly 600 species of lupines, some varieties have the ‘sweet gene’ and are used more for food which have great dietary values and benefits.
The rain interrupted my mowing but it does water the plants and flowers, as well as leave rain drops on the flowers which sparkle when the sun appears the next morning like on this iris.
April showers bring May flowers. Well hopefully this rainy April week will bring some flowers and maybe finally melt the last of the snow. Normally there would be some wildflowers open by now but not this year and only the second type of early spring bulbs have opened so far this year.
The Scilla siberica (Siberian squill or wood squill) is native to south western Russia, the Caucasus, and Turkey, and strangely, despite its name, it is not native to Siberia. It is cultivated for its bluebell-like flowers and it naturalizes rapidly from seed. At a height of less than six inches, it is suitable for planting in grass, and will spread by seed to form large colonies that go dormant by the time grass needs to be mowed. In the Midwestern United States it is becoming invasive in some situations. It is very hardy and cold tolerant, and is left untouched by critters from voles to deer.
The first signs of new life has appeared for Easter morning since a lone flower has poked through the dormant winter covering. The Glory-of-the-snow is a suitable name for this flower since there is still snow on the ground yet but the ‘glory’ of seeing some color besides white is a joyous occasion.
Well today is the first day of spring and two years ago, this pretty little flower was blooming before the official start of spring. If it tried blooming this year, the Glory of the Snow would have to bloom under a snow bank even if it is spring.
Glory of the Snow
But when I look from my porch, I couldn’t see any spring flowers this year so I decided to rectify that problem and ‘plant’ some flowers which I could view from my porch!
While in town today for a clinic appointment, there was flowers being delivered to one of the staff there for Valentine’s Day. Flowers, candy, cards and other gifts are given to spouses and sweethearts, but even though I don’t have a sweetheart, I still like Valentine’s Day since the Valentine candy was already on sale today!
And red is often associated with Valentine’s Day, so these white bleeding hearts would be overlooked and not used for Valentine’s Day. Plus the legend of the bleeding heart flowers isn’t too romantic as a Japan legend tells a story of how the bleeding heart flower came to be. In the story, a young man tried win the love of a young lady. He did this by giving a pair of rabbits (which are the first two petals of the flower), a pair of slippers (which are the next two petals of the flower), and finally a pair of earrings (which are the last two petals of the flower) to the girl. She continued to reject his affections, and, heart-broken, he pierced his heart with his sword (the middle part of the flower) which caused the bleeding heart.
