First plants

First flowers of spring.  See if you can spot the moose in the background.

With such a late spring, it has been especially exciting to finally see plants growing.  Yesterday while walking the path from Islands and Ocean Visitor's Center down to Bishop's Beach, I was so excited to see my first flowers of the spring I had to stop and take a picture--even if they are just dandelions!

Pushki (cow's parsnip) tends to be the first thing up in the spring, followed by horsetail--two of the banes of our lives:  pushki for the blistering effects and horsetail for its prevalence and the impossibility of pulling it up and getting rid of it.  Both these plants grow quickly, but if cut down enough, stop coming up.  So pushki patrol begins in our yard, with Douglas walking the perimeter of the yard with a shovel and hacking the roots off just below the surface of the ground.  Horsetail (see picture below) I just pull from flowerbeds and garden with no attempt to eradicate it.  It only comes back once or twice a summer, then the growing is done so if I keep it down I feel like I've succeeded.  Supposedly horsetail only grows in poor soil so I am hopeful that as I add more nutrients (compost) to my soil that there will be less horsetail.

Horsetail just coming up!

And that apple tree that got ringed by the rabbits last winter (a year ago) is just beginning to get some leaf buds on, so I don't know if that's because it is a late spring or if it is not going to recover from the assault on it.  Just a few other trees have anything close to leaves on yet so it could be that everything is late.

Sun is on the forecast for this week with temperatures up to the 50's and even 60's next week (gasp!) so there is hope!