I just wanted to let everyone know that as of Saturday, April 20th, we have 2 HUMMINGBIRDS!!!! The male was here on Wednesday, April 17th. And the female arrived on Saturday. Hopefully, they will tell their friends and more will come visit us soon. :)
Fingers crossed... I hope this link works... Amy Tan has written a book about birds! In addition to being a wonderful novelist, she's also a talented artist who spent the pandemic observing and sketching the birds in her backyard. Did I tell you I love Amy Tan?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2024/04/24/amy-tan-backyard-bird-chronicles/
April 16, 2024
Our birdhouse is occupied! The nest is a deep cup beautifully made of moss therefore our new tenants are black-capped chickadees.
In other avian news, the red columbine is blooming (native) which means the hummingbirds will be arriving soon. A check of journeynorth.org confirms that hummers have been sighted in northern Virginia this week. Rebecca has hung the library hummingbird feeders in anticipation of their arrival.
I closed the tap on the rain barrel to begin collecting water for another year of gardening.
April 1, 2024
Ladies and gentlemen, Virginia bluebell season is upon us! Our Nokesville library bluebells (in the front yard beside the female gingko tree) are blooming. The bluebell festival at Merrimac Farm will be held on Sunday, April 7 from 10 am - 3pm. So our clump of bluebells is right on time.
The weather is warming and flowers are blooming... so where are the hummers? A check of Journey North (journeynorth.org) shows numerous hummingbird sightings along the southern border of TN and NC. Last spring the first hummer arrived at the Nokesville library on April 22 so they're still about a month away.
Happy spring y'all!
Spring is coming to Nokesville! Last week we found a couple of small irises and a crocus in the front garden.
That iris reticulata was in bloom on March 1 last year so it's a couple of weeks earlier this spring. It's fun (to me anyway) to scroll back through old blog posts and compare. The National Park Service predicts that the cherries along the Tidal Basin will bloom two weeks earlier this year so our iris are in agreement.
Even in the winter our pollinator garden provides food and shelter for wildlife. You can learn more about native plants and the animals they support from this article by Master Gardeners of Northern Virginia. https://mgnv.org/mg-in-the-garden/native-plants-for-winter-interest/
Enjoy these snowy pictures of the library and garden from last week.
December 10, 2023
Aster October Skies has been blooming since October and it's still going strong!
I opened the tap on the rainbarrel to let it drain onto the parking lot for winter since we're having a monsoon today.
November 21, 2023
The USDA released updated plant winter hardiness zones at the following website
https://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/ .
The colors on the map blur together in my old retinas but you can input your zip code to learn the hardiness zone of your area. In Prince William County, the I-95 corridor is now zone 7b while areas west of Hoadley Road are now zone 7a.
I KNEW my Lake Ridge garden was a zone warmer than Nokesville so it's gratifying that the USDA agrees.
November 2, 2023
Frosty nights haven't daunted the asters, they continue to bloom for late pollinators.
If you haven't cleaned out your birdhouse yet, please do. Many of our songbirds don't migrate. They use birdhouses as roosting boxes: several bluebirds will huddle inside a box together and their body heat keeps them warm. Remove old nests, the birds like clean empty boxes for roosting.
Milkweed seed pods are popping open and the seeds sail away on silky parachutes like dandelion seeds.
Coneflower seed heads picked clean by birds have an interesting sculptural quality.
6 Participants
Wonderful!