SPRINGING TO LIFE

’Tis the season to get out and explore nature!

- Bonnie Sitter

Most springs, the snow hardly seems to have melted when spring flowers emerge in a way that seems impossible to imagine. How could all that beauty be sleeping under the snow? If you live near deciduous woods, spring is the time to go for a walk and discover spring wildflowers.

As early as the last week in April and possibly earlier, blooms will start to appear. The show will continue into and through the month of May. Here in Exeter, it is breathtaking. I head out each spring to enjoy and capture the beauty with my camera. Oftentimes, I am able to identify the flowers for people I meet along the trail. I encourage them to look to the side of the trail where there are logs rotting. Many flowers are tiny and are therefore overlooked. Two such examples are plants called spring beauty and Dutchman’s breeches; they have delicate blooms that are sometimes hidden by leaf debris on the forest floor. Both are showy and unique but no match in size for trilliums and marsh marigolds. The colour, size, and shape of all these blooms create one of nature’s finest shows, and with the MacNaughton-Morrison Trail on my doorstep, it’s readily available to view.