A Sign of the Early Times – Coltsfoot

  • Post published:03/23/2012
  • Post comments:5 Comments
Coltsfoot March 22, 2012

Coltsfoot started blooming three days ago on the Rose Bank. This is the first flower in my garden and this year it is much earlier than usual. I wrote about Coltsfoot’s properties as a medicinal herb here on April 17 in 2009. Coltsfoot is also known as Coughwort and is known as a remedy for coughs and other respiratory ailments across several culture.

I wrote about it as a wildflower here last year on April 26. I wonder – can a plant be an herb AND a wildflowers at the same time? Don’t know but I welcome those early dandelion-like flowers.

My pussy willow grows in such a wet spot that I didn’t get to it until yesterday to take a photo. It has been pussied up for so long now that it is just beginning to turn green at the base.

While I have daffodil shoots coming up I was amazed and delighted to see daffs blooming along the side of the Mohawk Trail in Charlemont yesterday and in Greenfield I saw magnolias, forsythia, scillas and more daffs in bloom. I can see leaf buds growing fat and green on lilacs – visible even from the car. Spring is coming at breakneck speed. Will it last?

This Post Has 5 Comments

  1. Lisa at Greenbow

    Isn’t spring grand! It is so hot here it feels like late May instead of late March.

  2. Pat

    Lisa – Yesterday the temperature went over 80! Very strange. But it is cooler today.

  3. Sharon Lovejoy

    Sure a plant can be both a wildflower and an herb!

    I love seeing those first few welcome and glorious hints of spring. Yes, we DO have a spring here in California too. My figs and grapes had leaves like tight baby fists last week. Now they’re open hands. I am so happy for renewed life.

    All joys to you,

    Sharon Lovejoy Writes from Sunflower House and a Little Green Island

  4. Pat

    Sharon – My lilac leaf buds are getting fatter ever minute.

  5. Jason

    I just got home from a three day trip and found the serviceberry in bloom. The crabapple looks like it will pop in a week or less. Virginia bluebells, bleeding heart and brunnera are just on the brink of blooming. It makes me feel almost sad – like the spring flower displays will be here and gone before I have a chance to really appreciate them. Of course, it doesn’t help I have to travel so much this time of year.

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