Peony season 2009

The first peony to open here this year was Paeonia mascula. It was followed almost immediately by three others: a white-flowered Chinese tree peony with no name (one of their utility grade peonies grown for the medicinal bark), a peony long-grown here under the dubious name P. arietina, and the little hybrid ‘Early Scout’. By now, several garden tree peonies have also joined the party.

That's the medicinal bark peony shown above.

These earliest peonies bloom when the garden is at its most tender, freshest best. There are dogwoods, redbuds, tulips, wisteria, phlox, daffodils, and a bewildering array of minor players; the foliage of the trees is still tiny and pale green, giving a magical greenish haze while allowing in plenty of light.

Little by little the migratory birds are reappearing. I sat on Wayne’s patio the other morning listening to a wood thrush and watching two male hummingbirds trying to boss each other around at the feeder. The first towhee of the year appeared on the patio the other day. The dawn choruses of birds are at their best: strong and varied and urging the sleepy-headed gardener to get out of bed and get going. The chortling of woodpeckers is now an oft repeated part of the daytime bird sound: are they poking fun at me?

Bird song is not the only aural entertainment on the air now: toads continue to call at the ponds. The call of the local toads is very soothing on the sort of nights we’re having now, nights which suggest July rather than April.

What a year: we’re just out of the first full week of spring, and the weather is saying summer. In response to this, there is another less pleasant sound now demanding attention: the whine and whirring of air conditioners has already started: what are those people thinking?

March 2009

March 2009 was a big disappointment to me. That brief mild spell we had at the very beginning of the year raised great expectations; March dampened most of them. Not only was the month cold, it was also dry and windy. There was a bit of rain towards the end of the month, and last week we had several days of slow, gentle rain which gave the garden a good soaking - and brought on a surge of growth.

Spring peepers have been in chorus now and then since March 8. Last weekend Wayne and I stopped by the local "peeper central" to check out the action. The peepers were singing in their hundreds, maybe thousands. Through the din of the peepers we could also make out chorus frogs and wood frogs. Today I heard toads calling, too.

It puzzled me that there have been no toads at the waterlily pool in the garden. Today I found out why: as I approached the pool today I heard a loud splash, the sort of noise turtles sometimes make. I didn't see anything - then. I decided to sit and watch. Several minutes passed and then suddenly, so suddenly it startled me, a muddy brown cylinder nearly as thick as my forearm shot up to the surface of the water, grabbed a quick breath, and just as suddenly disappeared. It was a snapping turtle, evidently not a small one. That no doubt explains the disappearance of most of the fifty gold fish I put into the pool last summer. Yesterday I noticed some small gray feathers floating on the pool surface.

So March this year came in like a polar bear and went out like a snapping turtle.

toads

Wayne was moving pots on his patio the other day, and this head popped up to say hello. Luckily he had his camera handy. Wayne's garden is right beside Rock Creek Park, too, so we get some of the same visitors. It's been so dry this year that very few toads have been seen. That's true for slugs, too, although I can't imagine anyone regretting the lack of slugs.

Of all the woodland sprites which occasionally visit our gardens, for me toads are the most welcome. They congregate in the lily pool yearly to breed. There will come a time, usually in April, when there will be dozens of them clumsily splashing around in the water. The males will be singing, some hidden in waterside vegetation, some right out in the open. This goes on for several nights, and then in much smaller numbers for weeks. Soon the pool swarms with tiny black tadpoles, and then the day comes when the ground in the garden is alive with what at first glance look like hopping flies. I try not to go out into the garden during this time because it's just about impossible to move without stepping on a baby toad.

One of the pleasures of late winter is to sit in the garden on a mild night and listen to the toads moving slowly up through the garden to the pond. You have to listen carefully because all you'll hear is the occasional leaf moving. The males seem much less cautious than the females, and typically they arrive at the pond first. Nor do the females seem to linger at the pond as the males do.

After a shower on a mild late winter or early spring evening, parts of Beach Drive in Rock Creek Park will be littered with dead and dying toads. Don't drivers ever look down at the road?