mid spring check in
you never walk through the same greenhouse twice
Tale as old as time: I finished my semester and immediately came down with a cold. I’m cancelling plans with impunity and devoting myself to drinking tea by the liter and eating soft foods as I reacquaint myself with being home. The sudden freedom would be a boon if not for the wicked sore throat accompanying it. Anyway, western Massachusetts continues to delight me, here is something of a photo essay of spring so far. (substack is telling me you probably have to click into the browser to see the whole thing because of so many photos. clicking the suntrap icon at the top will take you there or you could go straight to my substack homepage that hosts allll these missives.)
In January something told me I needed to start propagating thousands of seedlings of native plants. I’m glad I followed the whim because now I am supplying an emergent native plant nursery/garden and preparing to plug the hell out of my property with sandy specialist species. So far actual garden prep has taken a back seat to potting up seedlings. I’ll get there eventually.
In mid spring you never walk into the same greenhouse twice. There is always something new happening in there. I should cut back the Siberian Crab Apple tree that shades one corner of the greenhouse but so far I have not been able to bear taking more than a few branches off. It is a beautiful tree and the petals have been coating the ceiling in a way that feels ethereal.
By the grace of a goddess I made a large batch of Lung Tonic (meant it for a neighbor and for general respiratory support) mere days before falling ill. Now I am pouring big dollops of it in quarts of lemon water multiple times a day.
Lung Tonic is dried marshmallow, dried elecampane, and fresh ginger decocted for a few hours and steeped overnight. In the morning I warmed it back up and infused fresh white pine needles into it (the white pine is new to the recipe because I found a freshly fallen bough on a meadow walk.) Lastly, I strained the decoction and combined the liquid 1:1 with raw honey. Shake vigorously. It keeps for a few weeks in the fridge, you can also freeze it.
Checking on the roots of Rabbit Tobacco (Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium), a sandy specialist I first came across in herb school. It has a history of use as an herb for respiratory ailments (my precious) but I am more familiar with its magical lore ~ perhaps a story for another time.
My friend and a very good botanist, Ben, with Liatris novae-angliae aka New England Blazing Star that he propagated and keeps in my greenhouse. We were potting up seedlings together and he showed me the difference between Liatris he germinated in regular seed starting mix vs. seed starting mix combined with sand. The mix with sand has wayyyyy more robust roots! We were impressed with these results and I will be adding sand to my seed starting mixes for my sand loving plants from now on.
I love Smith. I picked a bouquet (with permission) after the spring bulb show.
Do you want the before and afters of my kitchen? This renovation goes so hard and I want to tell you all about it!! It’s been done for like 6 weeks and I have been hosting a lot. Before I came down with this wretched cold I hosted a sauerkraut making night for my neighbors which I have been dreaming of doing since we moved here.
Outfit check before a final presentation. This is my conservation botany indoor attire.
Virginia saxifrage (Micranthes virginiensis) growing off a boulder (a glacial erratic if we are being precise) along the Connecticut River. Something about a plant that loves a calcareous substrate really does it for me.
We are approaching our third season of hanging out on the patio of Dreamhouse with Grua. Hayden and I moved to Great Falls in July of 2024 (approaching two year anniversary!) and I pinch myself over how sweet this town is all the time.
It is easy to live in town when your favorite ecosystem is 5 minutes down the road! I recently got together with 5 of my most ecology obsessed friends and watched a webinar on my projector: Fire Influenced Natural Communities and their Restoration in Central Massachusetts. Watching the webinar was like a fire rolling over me that burned off my other interests and invigorated my singular focus on inland sand plain ecology. just kidding, but….!!!!!
Same group of friends and I traipsing through the sand plain and taking note of plant communities. It is enlightening to see who grows together and how.
I moved my potting up station from the greenhouse to the crab apple tree during peak bloom. 10/10 would do again.
And finally I give you: a map I made while practicing for my final coding project. I downloaded observations of the rare yellow lady’s slipper orchid from iNaturalist and overlayed them on a base map of elevation data for the state of Massachusetts. iNaturalist automatically obscures locations of endangered plants (for their protection) so these locations are not precise (not blowing up yellow lady slipper’s spot, promise.) I thought it would be interesting to see elevation in relation to the rare yellow lady’s slipper orchid observations. What is up with that outlier in Worcester?
That’s it from me! If you are going to be in western mass the weekend of May 30th, considering coming to this very cute fundraiser! It will be in the parking lot of Rust Temple (address on flyer) and I will be bringing many seedlings and potted plants, mostly native perennials.
Wishing you lots of spring magic and a total avoidance of spring colds,
Geraldine
p.s. you better click that little heart if you made it all the way here!!!
Yes to t he kitchen reno!