Although according to the calendar it hasn't officially arrived, the season of spring is upon us. The air temperature is noticeably warmer, and by walking around the arboretum you will see all of the usual spring time flowers: redbud, Mexican plum, red buckeye, laurel cherry, and our 'weedy' wildflowers, such as butterweed. Everyone's favorite ground-dwelling rodent celebrity, Punxsutawney Phil, was definitely wrong about his prediction for 2023: spring seems to be coming too soon this year. Due to this accelerated schedule, several transplanting projects still need to be completed before the soil warms up too much.
One ongoing transplanting project is to reduce the amount of grass on that grassy slope north of Cline Hall. We need more trees and shrubs in that part of the arboretum. So, this past week, we have put 8 plants in the ground near Cline Hall. One such plant is pictured below.
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| In this photo, we see a little pine tree. It was collected in Caddo parish, not far from Shreveport. For the time being we will refrain from putting an explicit species name on it, although it was collected near a grouping of loblolly pines. It is now growing in full sun on the grassy slope north of Cline Hall. Hopefully it will grow fast, and we can properly measure the length of those needles! |
