Design

Henbit flowers A morning walk found more winter flowers. Henbit ( Lamium amplexicaule ) is a winter annual (weed) from Europe, the earliest flowering of a large group of plants that germinate here in the fall and flower in winter or spring, produce LOTS of seeds, and wait until the following fall. It's really a lovely plant, however pesky it may be. A Japanese apricot ( Prunus mume ), normally flowering in February, has open flowers with many flower buds ready to open.

I've always had a sneaking admiration for the adaptability of weedy species; they're amazingly flexible in their reproductive strategies -- annual (winter or summer), biennial, perennial -- either terrific seed producers or excellent vegetative spreaders. Lots of strategies! Weedy winter annuals love our mild winters, so I always get lots of exercise pulling them up in open mulched areas. Fortunately, they're easy to pull, creating mounds of compostable material (composted 'hot' if plants have gone to seed.) Weedy species vary in their success year to year, but since winter annuals are adapted to quick growth at low temperatures, relatively speaking, and producing flowers and fruits quickly in spring, it's hard to keep ahead of their seed production. And usually, I'm behind; even here in the Carolinas, it's often too inhospitable to get out and weed (uh, sometimes the weekends are cold and rainy, even if we do have perfectly nice days periodically in ...