I took down the dead yew tree yesterday and had one car load for the dump and enough wood to top off the woodpile. When it’s a little dryer, I’ll put in some viburnum volunteers in that spot.
Two of the shrubs, a pair of Asian lilacs, that had shown no sign of flowers before the bone meal fertilizer, now each have several flower buds. Coincidence?
New blooms: mayapple, lily-of-the-valley, gill-over-the-ground.
May Apple hides its flower under those two umbrella-like leaves. After pollination, a large green 'apple' forms as the fruit.
Lamium, or Dead Nettle, this, the yellow flowering type, is the most hardy and aggressive and quite shade tolerant.
Who made this hole? The mound of dirt to the left was pushed up out of the hole by....
This guy, one of the seventeen-year cicadas. They hatch from their shells, eat sap, make noise, mate, and lay eggs in trees. The hatchlings drop off the trees and burrow into the ground for the next seventeen years. They have a very primitive look and are quite clumsy and awkward, possibly because there are only six generations per century and little chance to evolve. Contrast that with, say, mosquitos which have ten or more generations per season or a thousand generations per century and many more opportunities to evolve into faster and more elusive predators.
The first thing the cicada asked was, "What happened with Clinton's impeachment?"
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