Winter Walk-Off 2015

As winter winds down to a close, I am finally back to writing a post here. It is time for Les' Winter Walk-Off 2015. I have participated in this annual event every year he has hosted it. You can find my older posts here- 2014, 2013, 2012, & 2011.
The 'challenge' is to take a walk and photograph your sightings....nothing to be photographed from your garden. Not too tough to do. Over the years my walks have gotten shorter as my friends have gotten older and less interested in a long walk. They like eating grass on either side of the road. Maybe they are part cow? Newton, on the left, is now 13 + years old, and Skyler on the right, is 11 years old. Chasing bunnies and deer gets them running, otherwise they like to mosey.

Our neighborhood is still a quiet place and our walks are generally uninterrupted by cars.  Just past our property is a stream that runs under the road and into the lake. The frogs are always singing up a storm. Love how the sunshine is dappled through the woods - you can see into the forest a good bit before the undergrowth fills in.  Looks like I need to clean my lens. 

The wildflowers that pop up this time of year are so sweet. I enjoy the sea of purple along the roadside. I have shared pictures of this little beauty on Facebook and had to do a little more investigation to get the correct name. Common name is Bluets, botanical name, Houstonia pusilla.

Small four petaled little blooms, hardly a couple inches tall...but en masse--spectacular.

As I was looking for the name, a site I use quite often is namethatplant.net. listed it as H. pusilla. For some reason I saw it listed somewhere else as Houstonia caerulea and thought I had misnamed it. Oops, not unusual, but hate to do that. I apparently misnamed it last year in my Winter Walk-Off post.
More research and  I found that these beauties, above, are in fact Houstonia pusilla, one of the distinguishing features is a red eye. Check! Then I noticed that there were some that didn't have a red eye....and they were white.

 
See all those white little blooms and a pale blue one in the midst of them? White ones with a yellow eye are Houstonia caerulea and the pale blue are H. pusilla. The common name for the white ones is Quaker ladies, cute name.

Hard to photograph something so tiny...here is a side by side comparison.

Larger plants are coming to life as spring is really just about here...TOMORROW!!! The maples in  the woods have that reddish glow as their blooms emerge. The grasses from last year are still that lovely blonde but at the base you see new growth starting to show. The winged elms, Ulmus alata, have already blooms and will be leafing out soon.  They are a scrubby tree and quite abundant in our area. Luckily the pines haven't released their pollen yet, thought the river of yellow will be coming soon.

Another sign of spring on our walk is the blackberry brambles starting to leaf out. They are everywhere! We do get some blackberries but the birds and other wildlife get most of them. I pull out those brambles in my garden all the time and have thorn snags on my jeans to show for it.

Please check out Les at A Tidewater Gardener to see other Winter Walk-Off posts from various blogs.

©Copyright 2015 Janet. All rights reserved. Content created by Janet for The Queen of Seaford. words and photos by Janet,The Queen of Seaford.