birds, bees, flowers, trees

[florencemachines]

Spring in movies:

The Secret Garden (1993) filmed mainly in Yorkshire, England (Allerton House, Fountains Hall and  Luton Hoo). The garden was built from scratch at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire.

[sometiktoksarevalid]

[headspace-hotel]

I want to make people see how much has been taken away from them.

Did you know that there are dozens of species of fireflies, and some of them light up with a blue glow? Did you know about the moths? There are thousands of them, bright pink and raspberry orange and checkerboard and emerald. They are called things like Black-Etched Prominent, Purple Fairy, Pink-Legged Tiger, Small Mossy Glyph and Black-Bordered Lemon.

Did you know that there are moths that feed on lichens? Did you know about the blue and green bees? The rainbow-colored dogbane beetles? Your streams are supposed to teem with newts, salamanders, crawdads, frogs, and fishes. I want to take you by the hand and show you an animal you've never seen before, and say, "This exists! It's real! It's alive!"

There are secret wildflowers that no website will show you and that no list entitled "native species to attract butterflies!" will name. Every day I'm at work I see a new plant I didn't know existed.

The purple coneflowers and prairie blazing star are a tidepool, a puddle, and there is an ocean out there. There are wildflowers that only grow in a few specific counties in a single state in the United States, there are plants that are evolved specifically to live underneath the drip line of a dolomite cliff or on the border of a glade of exposed limestone bedrock. Did you know that different species of moss grow on the sides of a boulder vs. on top of it?

There are obscure trees you might have never seen—Sourwood, Yellowwood, Overcup Oak, Ninebark, Mountain Stewartia, Striped Maple, American Hophornbeam, Rusty Blackhaw, Kentucky Coffeetree. There are edible fruits you've never even heard of.

And it is so scary and sad that so many people live and work in environments where most of these wondrous living things have been locally extirpated.

There are vast tracts of suburb and town and city and barren pasture where a person could plausibly never learn of the existence of the vast majority of their native plants and animals, where a person might never imagine just how many there are, because they've only ever been exposed to the tiny handful of living things that can survive in a suburb and they have no reason to extrapolate that there are ten thousand more that no one is talking about.

It's like being a fish that has lived its whole life in a bucket, with no way of imagining the ocean. The insects in your field guide are a fraction of those that exist, of all the native plants to your area only a handful can be bought in a nursery.

Welcome to the Earth! It's beautiful! It's full of life! More things are real and beautiful and alive than a single person could imagine!!!

[headspace-hotel]

Look, I'm going to tell you some flowers native to the United States that you didn't know about

Ovate False Fiddleleaf, Rosy Twisted-Stalk

Cross-Leaf Milkwort, Blue Flowered Coyote Thistle

Gaywings, Michaux's Bluet

Redtwig Doghobble, Brook Saxifrage

Swollen Bladderwort, Two-Leaf Miterwort

I will happily keep going

[headspace-hotel]

FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE!!!

[headspace-hotel]

just when you THOUGHT there were enough plants

[headspace-hotel]

I'm adding on some photos I took myself

Spring Blue-Eyed Mary, Wingstem

Tall Ironweed growing randomly in my backyard, and a Carolina Wild Petunia growing in a CRACK in the PAVEMENT

A pink aster that I can only assume is a New England Aster with a mutation or something?

Unidentified plant, found this summer near a stream.

[animentality]

[poppyseed-art]

[meangirlnurse]

fixation of the hour is *spins wheel* lawn alternatives

[meangirlnurse]

i was hoping to find some native groundcovers/sedges i liked but creeping thyme kinda fucks and at least isn't invasive

[doppelnatur]

I think we should claim dandelions as trans flowers.... They're seen as weeds and pests, they withstand a lot, they transform..... What more could you want

[siarven]

Saw this post by @doppelnatur how dandelions are pretty good trans symbols and got inspired! Happy pride everyone 🏳️‍⚧️

[kjsgarden]

“Welcome, Uncle Gherland,” Ethyne said with a gentle bow. “I was just heating some water in the kettle, and I have fresh mint from the garden. Can I make you some tea?”

Grand Elder Gherland wrinkled his nose. “Most housewives, madam,” he said acidly, “would not bother with herbal trifles in their garden when there are mouths to feed and neighbors to look after. Why not grow something more substantial?”

Ethyne was unruffled as she moved about the kitchen. The baby was strapped to her body with a pretty cloth, which she had embroidered herself, no doubt. Everything in the house was clever and beautified. Industrious, creative, and canny. Gherland had seen that combination before, and he did not like it. She poured hot water into two handmade cups stuffed with mint, and sweetened it with honey from her hive outside. Bees and flowers and even singing birds surrounded the house. Gherland shifted uncomfortably. He took his cup of tea and thanked his hostess, though he was certain that he would despise it. He took a sip. The tea, he realized peevishly, was the most delicious thing he had ever drunk.

“Oh, Uncle Gherland,” Ethyne sighed happily, leaning into her sling to kiss the head of her baby. “Surely you know that a productive garden is a well-balanced garden. There are plants that eat the soil and plants that feed the soil. We grow more than we could ever eat, of course, and much of it is given away. As you know, your nephew is always willing to give of himself to help others.” The Girl Who Drank The Moon, Kelly Barnhill

[kjsgarden]

“Hope,” she had told him, tracing the many scars on his face tenderly with her small, clever fingers, “is those first tiny buds that form at the very end of winter. How dry they look! How dead! And how cold they are in our fingers! But not for long. They grow big, then sticky, then swollen, and then the whole world is green.”

The Girl Who Drank The Moon, Kelly Barnhill

[smokethereisfire]

Richard Calver (1946-) - Dandelions Rejoicing

[thunderstruck9]

Richard Calver (Canadian, 1946-2021), Dandelions Rejoicing, 2000. Colour linocut on paper, 18 ¼ x 13 ¼ in. Edition of 50

[rohirric-hunter]

We laugh at how The Art of War is basically just, "An army can't fight if the soldiers aren't eating," but I'm reading this document about conservation of ancient yew trees and it legitimately says, "You should never fill the center of a hollow yew with concrete," so I think that probably making blatantly obvious statements is just the bane of being a specialist in anything

[v-spicata]

Ah yeah, that's actually not so bizarre when you know the reasons behind it. Still extremely wrong but understandable at least.

So yew trees are weird. They are extremely long lived with basically no known upper limit to their age. They do this by simply being extremely good at not dying like other trees do.

When a normal tree gets to an old age what usually happens is a fungus gets into their heartwood and takes hold. Their internal, dead wood rots away and they hollow out, lose structural support and collapse. Depending on the species this process can take decades or a good few centuries or so.

While yew trees do hollow out in this way they simply keep going afterwards. A ring shaped yew tree with most of its trunk missing is actually just middle aged and the most ancient yews get even weirder than that.

Wikipedia has this image of a Scottish yew where the start of this hollowing process can be seen. To be clear - for most tree species this would already have been fatal.

The thing is seeing a very old yew in this condition looks wrong to a tree surgeon, it's like the tree is constantly on the verge of death. So, if it's a well loved tree you try and do what you can to stop it from falling apart entirely.

A hundred years ago people tried all sorts of things like chaining up branches and also, yes, plugging the hollowed trunk with concrete. We know better nowadays.

Funnily enough there are even yews that survived this treatment and are still alive today.

This is a picture of the Tisbury yew in 1998 from the Ancient Yew Group, barely a minute ago from the tree's perspective.

Yews are fascinating plants with roots in European culture as ancient as the trees themselves. A few individual specimen trees are even estimated to be around five thousand years old - literally prehistoric in age.

Oh also they do weird things with sex as well sometimes. One of the oldest UK trees, the Fortingall yew appears to partially be turning from male to female on one side. It'll be interesting to see what becomes of it in the next few centuries of its life.

Sorry if this is all stuff you already know, I couldn't resist a chance to infodump about one of my favourite species.

[geopsych]

The ginkgo leaf, designed on Pangea before the continents separated over 200 million years ago, is still one of the most beautiful designs on earth.

[sovietnam]

[headspace-hotel]

What's your favorite invasive species

KUDZU KUDZU KUZDU KUZDU KUDZU KUDZU KUDZU

I love her so much. Look at her go. So powerful and strong. I love you kudzu

[keyboard-smash-heh]

Kudzu project goats would like to: Know Your Location

[headspace-hotel]

jokes on yall I love goats also

[1-hug-man]

NO KUDZU DETSROYS ECOSYSTEMS IRL

[headspace-hotel]

god forbid women do anything

...

look, in my brain i know kudzu is destructive. In my heart I see kudzu and I'm like BIG PLANT LOVELY POWERFUL PLANT MAJESTY AND BEAUTY!!!!!!! LOVE!!!!! GROW AND EXPAND AND POWERFUL!!!! YES!!!!!!!! YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[xaira-gabvi]

This is how I feel about Japanese knotweed. I know it's extremely invasive and destructive in my own region and in America at large. Where it grows, nothing else grows. It crowds out sensitive flora on riverbanks. It sends rhizomes in 100ft radius, and any broken piece of root can float downstream and propagate. People keep planting it in their yard. It is unstoppable.

But it's so cute when the soil thaws and the light pink shoots emerge from beneath the rotting leaves. And when they grow a foot tall, a few short days later, they are crunchy and tart and gorged with water. They're like if rhubarb were tender and not unbearably acidic. You can eat them as a refreshing snack as you forage for fiddlehead ferns and trout lilies. As adults, they stand 7ft tall and look like tiny bamboo. Tiny birds love perching in the dense thicket they form.

It's ok to love them, especially if you're willing to harvest them! However, I will make an exception for my own personal nemesis; the Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia). Fuck that weed. Stop planting it everywhere.

[headspace-hotel]

virginia creeper plants herself where I live, no need for planting. at home, she grows over my bedroom window and keeps my room cool so I love her. love her creepy little sticky paws

[aralintheobsessive]

if you want butterflies, you need to live with caterpillars.

i am not being metaphorical, i work in a garden center, stop buying plants 'to bring in the bees and butterflies' and then immediately poisoning every caterpillar that dares to consume a single leaf

you will not get butterflies if you kill all the things that turn into butterflies! what are you doing!

[sylestial]

Spring Truther Affirmations

spring is real

spring has happened before

spring will happen again

spring is coming

spring is on its way

it’s going to be spring soon

spring is not a myth

spring is not a false memory

[kyotoprotocols]