PIN CHERRIES AND CREEPING PHLOX

PIN CHERRY...

CLUSTER OF BLOOMS

CREEPING PHLOX IN OLD CEMETARY ON HWY. 2...

...IN LAWN ON 11TH AND WILSON AVE.

Saturday,  8:15 AM.  52 degrees F, wind SW, light with some moderate gusts.  The sky is mostly overcast and hazy. The humidity is 83% and the barometer is trending down, now at 30.11".  It looks like Sunday and Monday will be rainy days, which is not all bad, as droughty soils are starting to dry out and the newly planted trees will benefit as well.

   Wild cherries are blooming now along with the Juneberries.  We have the pin cherry, the choke cherry, and the sand cherry, all shrubs or small trees, and the black cherry, a large tree of the deciduous forest.  They are edible but seldom used except occasionally for jams and jellies, but all make excellent wild life food.

   The pin cherry, pictured above, is a familiar small tree of woods edges and roadsides.  Its red, sour cherries have a single stone, and ripen in July or early August. An easy way to distinguish cherry blossoms from other white flowers is that the yellow, pollen bearing stamens are held high above the petals of the flowers.  Close up, Junebrerry (Amelanchier) and cherry flowers are quite dissimilar, but from a distance they can be confusing, in spring all blooming together on the edge of woods and fields.

   Creeping Phlox, Phlox stolonifera, are blooming now in gardens.  Native to the eastern US, it is known mostly as a garden plant. Occasionally it will escape into a lawn, where it will survive mowing and look spectacular.  One is very lucky when it does so, as it is next to impossible to establish it there on purpose.