Warm Spell.

11-27-11 SHORT HILLS: It’s been at or near sixty for the past three days and very pleasant. The yard is still muddy from the rain, but the warm spell has resulted in a bunch of wild strawberry flowers and a dandelion opening up in the lawn and a few, scattered forsythia blooms.

The forsythia are the last ones to dump their leaves, at least in this yard. With all the other deciduous plants bare, I have found lots more dead fall from the storms lying on the shrubs. The town finally got to our street to pick up the huge pile of branches, but we are still waiting for the tree people to get here for the big clean up and pruning.

New blooms: dandelion, wild strawberry, forsythia.


Forsythia always puts out a few after a warm spell in the fall.

Forsythia is one of the last to go bare and demonstrates the yellow pigment in the leaves that it shows in the flowers.

Witchhazel is a late bloomer. These small flowers become noticeable when the leaves are down. It has a cluster of three flowers, each with four petals and four of crepe-paper tentacles.