March: Awakening

Under the new circumstances as the University of Vermont moves to remote learning, I have moved my observation spot to my backyard (Figure 7) and observing the changes my many houseplants have towards the shifting of seasons. Massachusetts has advised everyone to stay home so I must keep my observations from my house, but I hope as the weeks progress I will have the opportunity to observe some of the parks and hiking trails.

The weather lately has been very cloudy and windy. It has rained multiple times for only short periods of time, but the clouds have prevented the rain from drying up so the garden has remained pretty muddy and the grass mushes under my feet. It is still relatively warm out showing that spring approaches. The snowfall from the winter caused the brick patio my dad built last summer to become loose and shift apart. It has made the surrounding grass bend outward and the sand in between the bricks sink into the sand, so the patio must be filled in. Despite the cloudy weather, there are clear signs of spring. My peony tree is growing a brand new bud off of the original branch clusters (Figure 6). The crabapple tree on the side of the house has a hundred of bright green buds growing off its branches (Figure 5). It was not a harsh winter so many of the berries from the fall are still on the tree. We had to trim a couple of lower branches as we assumed bunnies were tearing of some of the smaller ends of the branches and gnawing on the bark.

The lack of sunlight the past couple weeks has shown a real damage to a few of my houseplants. My carnivorous bog plant was thriving in the summer, but as it prefers heat and sun it has slowly died through the winter (Figure 1). My small palm also does best in tropical weather and is beginning to droop at the lack of sun (Figure 3). Almost all of my plants have had to go a week and a half with out another watering since the sun has not yet been able to soak up the water from their soil which has me concerned for root rot. However, both my copperstone succulent (Figure 2) and cactus (Figure 4) are growing new buds. They both handle changes in weather very well, so it is not surprising that they were able to grow new buds while the rest pf my plants are having difficulty with this cloudy weather.