MOST RECENT POSTINGS
Wednesday, June 19, 2013 - 14:05
On the cusp of summer, just when I begin to dread the onset of unrelenting heat and humidity, a cool and soothing vision appears in our forests and yards – the blooms of native and Asian hydrangeas.
Wild hydrangea (Hydrangea arborescens) is...
Wednesday, June 5, 2013 - 10:37
Years ago, a friend in Uwharrie showed me a crooked tree on his family’s property. Its trunk was bent at two right angles, creating a horizontal span about 4 feet off the ground. He said they called it their “ducker-header...
Wednesday, May 22, 2013 - 09:08
The discovery of a new species conjures images of explorers in pith helmets hacking through remote regions of the Amazon and stumbling across something outlandish. The reality is generally much less dramatic. New species can still be found in our...
Wednesday, May 8, 2013 - 09:00
Mama says my love of white flowers comes from my great-grandmother, Lillian Hilliard. When Grandma Noona and Pa Atlas moved to a tidy brick ranch house in Farmer, N.C., she parted with the ungodly sum of $100 so she could plant four sizable...
Thursday, April 25, 2013 - 11:01
In 1963, the General Assembly boldly proclaimed the official state tree of North Carolina would be – drum roll, please – the pine. What? You have to wonder why they didn’t bestow the honor on a particular species. Perhaps it’...
Thursday, April 11, 2013 - 12:55
In Looking for Longleaf: The Fall and Rise of an American Forest, Lawrence Earley traced the changes in society and technology that reduced a swath of forest once covering 92 million acres to isolated pockets totaling less than 3 million acres today...
Thursday, March 28, 2013 - 12:06
Even though wildflowers such as trout lily and hepatica start to bloom in February, the surrounding forest isn’t in a rush to don its spring attire. The trees and shrubs seem perfectly content to wear their winter garb a little longer. For me...
Thursday, March 14, 2013 - 08:24
I was having a pleasant drive the other day along a back road in the Uwharries when I suddenly came across a grisly scene. No, it wasn’t roadkill, and thankfully not a car wreck, but a row of decapitated crape myrtles. Dozens of trees lining...
Tuesday, February 19, 2013 - 08:44
Champagne, chocolates, roses, jewelry and cards. We humans aren’t the only ones demonstrating our affections this time of year. In the skies above us, red-tailed hawks are also engaged in their own romantic displays.
Red-tails are...
Tuesday, February 5, 2013 - 08:52
Birds flock to Mama’s feeders this time of year. She has several seed and suet feeders hanging from the maple outside her living room window. At times, upwards of a hundred birds – maybe a dozen species – joust for perches, flit...
