My Road

I try to walk the road in front of my house as often as possible, and always travel the same mile of road. One reason is health, but another is identifying all the native or invasive plants that grow along the road. What I've discovered is, given a chance, the natives survive in spite of all the completion from imported garden plants.

This week I snapped two native wildflowers: bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) and a yellow dogtooth violet, also known as trout lily, (Erythronium americanum) along one shady bank. Another wooded bank is covered in Vinca minor, an imported ground cover known locally as periwinkle. The house it once surrounded is gone but this invasive plant has covered this ground and now the small native plants are gone.

The bottom photo is a pond with some leftover cattails. I found it an interesting spot, the deep snow and ice of winter finally melted but last season's cattails still standing tall.