Dogwoods and Redbuds

There’s two times of year when I’d urge all with any level of passion for the outdoors to take in the woods, and its short-lived seasonal glories. The fall, when the forest is consumed with color, and right now for the brief reign of the dogwoods and redbuds. If you can’t walk a forest trail, then drive any of our country roads for the tonic of an Appalachian spring.

We’ve just emerged from the yearly early April chill known as as “dogwood” winter. It seems to herald the coming show, while there’s still a green blush to the dogwood blossoms. Maybe that chill infuses the flowers with the brilliant white which charms so distinctively under clear blue skies.

On the hillsides, along the bottoms, wherever there’s an edge to the forest, dabs of bold white counter the soft lavender of the redbuds and green hues of the awakening season. It’s the redbud's final show, too, before heart shaped leaves rule limbs now decked in delicate flowers. Under foot, the warming earth invites trilliums and wake robins, phacelia, violets, and stands of mayapple back from winter’s retreat.

A few years ago, there real fears a blight would banish the dogwoods from our spring. And dogwood anthracnose took its toll, bringing down many trees. The dogwood still reigns, but with less hold than seasons past. But the worst may be over, or at least that’s my hope.

Over the weekend I wandered off a trail into a pocket of deep woods where a dense stand of loblolly pines had been planted years ago. Another scourge of recent years, the pine beetle, left the forest floor criss-crossed with fallen trunks, moss covered and decaying.

But in their wake, young dogwoods had taken root, a stand stretching for a hundred yards or so, determined and promising even in the shower of ice pellets that fell as I passed in winter's finale.