Today, the first day of April, has dawned cold with rain and winds after a week of mild weather, and I seek solace in the first harbingers of spring. A hike to Cabin Swamp in Hickory Hollow Natural Area Preserve is just the spring tonic needed. Sure enough, the showy Marsh Marigolds, Caltha palustris, are already in bloom, flaunting their showy bright yellow flowers above mounds of glossy green foliage.

As signs of spring fill the air, I find myself eagerly anticipating the vibrant magenta pink blooms of one of our most beautiful flowering trees, the Eastern Redbud, Cercis canadensis. This small tree is a common sight along roadsides, woodland edges, and old fields in Virginia in late March and early April when its showy flowers create a lovely haze of magenta in the spring landscape.

The Common Hackberry is one of our most adaptable native shade trees and is also among the best trees to plant for wildlife. The trunk of hackberries has smooth gray bark covered with distinctive warts, bumps, and corky ridges and is one of its most recognizable features, especially in winter. They have a graceful upright habit with arching limbs and fine-textured, pendulous branch tips, often tinged red in winter. This rugged tree is full of ornamental character sometimes with picturesque twisting branches and small twiggy, tangled growths at the tips of twigs, known as ‘witches brooms’.

American Beeches are one of our most magnificent native trees, beautiful in every season, especially winter. They are also one of the most easily recognized of our eastern deciduous trees, with their silvery gray bark that appears “cast from molten pewter”. The massive trunks appear smooth to the eye but are slightly rough to touch and sometimes likened to elephant hide. American Beeches are slow growing but reach heights of 60 – 80’ and are known to grow as tall as 120’. This tree has massive smooth trunks with fluted bases that give way to a tracery of fine silvery branches accented with rich brown narrow pointed buds. Oval leaves alternate down the fine branches and are lined with small regular teeth along the margins and distinctive parallel veins on either side of the mid-rib. The lustrous leaves are almost translucent when held up to the sun, casting a dappled light under the trees. The leaves emerge a glowing chartreuse in spring, and light up the woodlands once again in fall when they turn a rich copper which glows against the silvery gray trunks. In winter, some of the leaves curl and fade to a light parchment color and hang on the branches, especially on younger trees and on lower branches of older trees, creating a lovely contrast with the gray trunks and surrounding forest.

As the winter solstice approaches, I am already anticipating the blooms of our earliest spring wildflower, Skunk Cabbage, Symplocarpus foetidus. The buds of this winter blooming wildflower begin to appear in our region as early as December and the flowers often start to bloom by New Year’s Day. As one might imagine for a wildflower that manages to bloom and attract pollinators in the dead of winter, this plant has developed some remarkably interesting adaptations to the cold and even snow cover.

As the winter solstice approaches, I am already anticipating the blooms of our earliest spring wildflower, Skunk Cabbage, Symplocarpus foetidus. The buds of this winter blooming wildflower begin to appear in our region as early as December and the flowers often start to bloom by New Year’s Day. As one might imagine for a wildflower that manages to bloom and attract pollinators in the dead of winter, this plant has developed some remarkably interesting adaptations to the cold and even snow cover.

Every fall as the leaves begin to drop and little else dares to bloom, I look forward to the blooms of our Common Witch Hazel, Hamamelis virginiana, a lovely small deciduous understory tree that flaunts clusters of spidery yellow blooms along its bare branches.

Red Chokeberry, Aronia arbutifolia, is a versatile landscape shrub that shines in all four seasons of the year.