flowers – New Hampshire Green Leaves Blog

April 2025

Not much happening locally this month. It’s been quiet, which I consider a blessing these days. The weather has gradually been warming over the course of April, with temperatures yesterday up in the sixties, about normal for this time of year in Northern New Hampshire.

Spring violets have just popped up.

Snowdrops bloomed and have gone by now, being quickly succeeded by spring crocuses. For some peculiar reason a few have somehow mysteriously migrated from inside to just outside the border of the garden, where I most definitely did not plant them. Another one was out in the middle of the front lawn. It’s most likely that a squirrel dug them up and reburied them (I’ve seen them do this with acorns). So I am marking their location, to dig up in the fall for replanting back into the garden, where hopefully they will stay.

Well, the robins are once again at it, checking out the garage door opener unit in the unused part of the garage. This makes the third year in a row they have scouted this as a possible nesting site. As usual that gets a big ‘nope’ from me, so I am keeping the main garage door closed whenever possible. It’s kind of a shame as they clearly have their little hearts set on this spot. I can see why it’s tempting: it’s quiet (I’m rarely noisy), out of sight of egg-eating predators, and no cat patrolling the premises. Unfortunately robins are messy nesters and I want to keep the opener unit clean and functional for the occasions when I need to open that side of the garage. So my would-be boarders will have to house hunt somewhere else.

Last but not least, the next door neighbor has a whimsical streak.

I spotted this huge tree conk about a month ago growing out of a tree on the edge of my property and was amazed it had escaped my notice. It’s well over a foot in length. Info on the web states it is very difficult to age bracket fungi like this but I can’t believe this popped up overnight. Well apparently my neighbor also took note of this fungal prodigy and set up a little gnome house with attendant gnome with a white rock for decor.

Well, that’s all for now. Have a happy May.

“Hey, peace and love, man!”

May Flowers, courtesy of April Showers

Now past Memorial Day, I look back on how spring has been progressing in my neck of the northern New Hampshire woods. As usual, my personal obsession is with the flowers I see appearing. Along with a generous amount of dandelions, strawberry flowers, Canadian mayflowers and both violet and white violas have burst out of the front lawn. The back lawn has a glorious cluster of forget-me-nots, mostly blue but with a few white and pink ones sprinkled in. It gives me a good excuse for holding off on mowing the lawn.

Wildflowers appear in the patches of woods in my neighborhood.

I spotted this lovely patch of wood anemones just a short ways up the road from where I live.

Star flowers, Canadian Mayflowers, bunch berry and a solitary pink lady slipper have bloomed in the wood behind my home. The single flower of the lady slipper was a pleasant surprise as the plant had not put any blossoms for at least three years, something I attributed to the prolonged dry spell we had been having in northern New England. But the generous rains of last year must have given it a boost.

While technically a wild flower, I managed to convince a few trout lilies to grow alongside the foundation. Their yellow flowers, bowing their heads towards the ground, put on a quiet but pretty display along with large lavish green leaves.

Flowering bushes decorate many lawns around the neighborhood. Along with the forsythia and azaleas, there are flowering crab trees which seem to be putting on an extra lush display this spring.

But of course my all time favorite is the fragrant purple lilac bushes. Their wonderful odor conveys the essence of springtime as nothing else does for me.

This bush is popular enough so that the nearby town of Lisbon, New Hampshire has a Lilac Festival every Memorial Day weekend, rain or shine.

Now on to June! Happy springtime to all.

Summer’s End

Labor day is almost upon us. Although summer still officially lasts for about three more weeks, Labor Day makes it seem like it’s the end of the season and the start of fall.

It’s been an abnormally dry season though some relief in the form of rain has begun arriving in the past few weeks to help the sweet corn along for the farmer’s market. There was a population boom of bumblebees in contrast to the scarcity of the insect last summer. Fire flies made a tentative reappearance though June bugs still seem to be in short supply.

It was a good summer for babies. A pair of Canada geese has been raising a brood in the tiny nature preserve near where I live. My sister-in-law took this adorable photo of a baby merganser goose-stepping across the road following his mother.

I’ve seen fledgling robins and heard young chickadees, nuthatches and chipping sparrows pursuing their parents begging for a last few morsels of food before they will have to fend for themselves.

Although the weather was on the dry side, a number of plants did well for themselves. The Black eyed Susans in my garden have bloomed prolifically.

The recent rains brought out a small mushroom nestled among the roots of a white pine.

My Jack-In-The-Pulpit bloomed its characteristic ‘jack’ and is now forming a berry cluster which will turn bright red.

While on a morning walk in late July, I encountered a Monarch butterfly feeding in a patch of milkweed on the corner of a parking lot.

It was a thrill to see this badly endangered butterfly still hanging in there. Now the milkweed has produced pods and if they can escape getting weed-wacked, I hope to collect a few when they ripen and try getting them to grow on the bank in back of my home.

Hope you had a happy summer.

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