I have always loved flowers. When I was four years old my next door neighbor took me for a walk to a stream to pick violets for my mother for Mother's Day. It was the first memory I have of flowers. How lovely to remember picking them near my home and giving them as a gift. I have many violets in my garden today. My Dad had a part-time job as a gardener. He grew and tended a beautiful rose garden, as well as, a cutting garden with zinnias and dahlias. I loved going with him some Saturday mornings to run around the small estate he cared for and gardened at and to smell and cut some flowers to bring home. I especially loved the smell of the potting shed which had dank and musty odors from flower pots, gardening tools, soils and fertilizers.For thirty years or so, I have looked for wildflowers in the woods and gardens locally and on hikes in the Adirondacks. Spring Wildflowers are stunning, fleeting, and a gift. Thank you, Mother Nature. You are Incredible. Happy Earth Day all!!!
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Wild Ginger
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| Bloodroot |
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Trout Lily
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Meadow Rue Leafing Out
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Blue Cohosh Unfurling
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Dutchman's Breeches
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Yellow Violet
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Long-spurred Violet
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May Apple
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Sharp-lobed Hepatica
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Carolina Spring Beauties with Pink Pollen
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Red Trillium
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All these flowers are in our local preserves: Ballston Creek Preserve- the Carolina Spring Beauties carpet the forest floor. Shenantaha Creek Park has an Abundance of wildflowers by the creek and up on the Zim-Smith trail. In Round Lake we have Bloodroot on the Zim going towards the old railroad bridge, either side of the trail going down the banks. In the Peck Avenue woods we have Trilliums, Trout Lilies, and Jack-in the-Pulpit.
