Once again the spring ephemerals are carpeting the forest and woodland floor only to be quickly admired and sleep again until next year. Spring ephemerals (i fem’ ur als) are plants whose glory lasts but a few days but the memory of their haunting beauty will remain with you for months come. You will find yourself looking expectantly for their return the following spring. These native wonders emerge before the trees leaf out as they must acquire enough sunlight to produce seed and store energy before the forest canopy fills in. Then they fade away until next year. Let’s walk gingerly along an imaginary path and enjoy the fleeting beauty of spring’s earliest wonders. Hepatica americana, Liverleaf, is one of the earliest harbingers of spring. It bears dainty 1/2” white flowers blushed with pink or deep blue. The flowers are born on stalks which leap into view directly from the…
A Bit of Dirt – Winter 2007
The full pdf copy of this edition is available here. PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE By Glenn Parsons Hello all my Master Gardener friends and Happy New Year. I am honored to have the opportunity to deliver this message in our quarterly newsletter. The newsletter is something all of us enjoy reading since it keeps us in touch with what Master Gardeners are doing in Gwinnett County. I encourage any Master Gardener who wants to share gardening knowledge or experiences to submit an article for publication in our newsletter. Today I walked in my garden and found things to be rather desolate on this winter day in Georgia. I did find a Daphne odora beginning to flower, a few Hellebores buds forming under the cover of fallen oak leaves, and, popping out of the ground, Cardamine diphylla (grandma called it “Tooth Wort”). We gardener’s can find wonderful things on the bleakest of days….
Mycorrhizas: The Underground Internet
Most people are familiar with fungi that cause itchy toes and moldy bread. What if I told you that there are a multitude of fungi in an “Underground Internet” that wraps around the roots of almost every plant in the your landscape? Not only that, but also these fungi thrives by sucking energy from the plants to sustain themselves? Yes, these fungi are lurking in the soil of your landscape right now! Is this some Friday the 13th scary story intended to raise the hair on the back of your neck? No! These fungi are real and they are everywhere! They are mycorrhizas (pronounced my-CORE-rye-zuhs). This not-so-glorious association between plants, soil, and fungus is fundamental to plant establishment and growth. There are about 5,000 different fungal species that form a mycorrhizal relationship with over 300,000 plants. This association is an absolute necessity for the establishment of many plants. The absence…