All Outdoors
It is absolutely not true that I am not a dog lover.
My favorite dogs in the woods, though, are the dogwoods, those flowering beauties whose bark is worse than their bite. And, contrary to canines, you can teach an old dogwood a new trick: that of fantastic flowering each year, and pollen dispersion far and wide.
Not a day late or a dollar short.
It was almost two weeks ago a basking shark washed up on an Aquinnah beach. Somehow, I still feel compelled to go to great depths to find out more about this fascinating creature.
The grass is always greener ... except when it is blue and not grass at all.
Blue-eyed grass is opening its eyes at a field near you. Delicate, subtle and not as it seems is an apt description of this pleasing plant.
Star flower, star power.
If you find yourself seeing stars in the middle of the day, in bright sunlight, it may not necessarily be due to a bump on the head. It may simply be Mother Nature making magic.
Chokeberry had a stranglehold on James Hardin’s affection.
In 1973, James W. Hardin wrote an article called The Enigmatic Chokeberries. While I was unable to find this treatise on his beloved plant, I can relate to his fondness for a lanky shrub that is currently blooming in woodlands Islandwide.
Europe has given us many great food and drink specialties — prosecco and spumoni from Italy, triple cream brie and wine from France, sangria from Spain and Guinness (need I say more?) from Ireland.
There is at least one culinary gift from Europe that we can do without. Botanists, butterfly lovers, and plant people of all types abhor this overseas present, the invasive plant, garlic mustard. And some folks have come up with very creative ways to eradicate it.