4 March 2023

This week the weather stayed above freezing with an extraordinary high of 72F on 1 March. The plants and trees responded by bursting into bloom and leaf. Pictured here are:

• A flowering cherry tree in Shadyside, 1 March
• Coltsfoot in bloom at Moraine State Park, 1 March
• Hairy bittercress blooming in Shadyside, 2 March
• London plane tree seed balls disintegrating (a spring thing), 27 Feb
• Honeysuckle leaf out, 2 March.

A week ago my photos of blooms, buds and leaves were 4 weeks earlier than last year. When I get a chance I’ll see if spring is still running four weeks ahead of schedule.

Now that the plants are waking up for spring Pittsburgh’s deer (over)population is finding more to eat. In front of Phipps’ Botany Hall I found a side-by-side example of yews, a favorite deer winter food, protected and unprotected from deer browse. One bush has no protection, the rest were wrapped in plastic fencing(*). You can already see the difference.

(photos by Kate St. John)

(*) The protected yews were wrapped on 15 December 2022 so, at the time of the photo, the unprotected yew was showing 10.5 weeks of deer browsing.