Two More Native Plants (Ground-Covers)

I'm joining in the memes hosted by Nature Notes hosted by Rambling Woods, St Germain's and Today's Flowers meme. Suddenly a thought has occurred to me. Now it's spring with summer coming soon. Everything is blooming. But, what will happen when winter comes? How will I participate in all these memes? So, I'm going to cheat. I will not submit all the flowers and wild-life stories, every-week, for the memes. I will put up everything staggeringly so that I can continue participation throughout the year.

So, this week I present to you two more native plants. The first one is Foam-flower (Tiarella cordifolia), also known as False-Miterwort. On a glance, the flowers of Miterwort and Foam-flowers do look similar but they are not. This is also a plant of the shady area. It will grow in the most dark area (under a pine-tree), and forms colonies through underground rhizomes. In spring the flowers come up in tall spikes. Rest of the year, it's a neat ground-cover. It's part of the saxifrage family. It's deer and other critter resistant.

The second one is that of native wild geranium or Cranesbill or Spotted Geranium (Geranium Maculatum). It's a plant loved by deers. So, if you plant this, you have to make sure to take some steps to keep deers out. It also spreads by underground rhizomes. It's a very low growing (pretty much ground-cover) plant with small, dainty flowers. It needs full-sun. It will grow in shade but will not flower (that's my experience). Being a native plant, it does not have the big-show-off glamorous flowers of cultivated Geranium. But I love it. To compare their beauties, I have to tell that commercial Geraniums are like celebrities who put on lots of make-up and fancy clothes to portray their beauties; whereas this native Geranium is that of the beauty of the moon -- calm and serene whose beauty radiates out everywhere and does not need any special touch. And, when it blooms the whole mound of plant is covered with these dainty elegant flowers.

In my previous post I mentioned that a Blue-Jay has made nest in front of our front-door. Hats off to it's dedication. It does not move, rain or shine, from that place. How can it have so much patience and dedication and perhaps go without much food. Couple of times I saw another Blue-Jay coming and feeding it. I don't know their genders. Is it the mother Blue-Jay who is sitting in the nest? Or the father Blue-Jay. Online search told me that both parents feed the chicks; but I don't know who initially take care of the nest. At the beginning, it was scared of me. But I have tamed it by offering sunflower-seeds and peanuts. So, every morning and afternoon, I go out and offer it some food. It does not bulge from the next but another Blue-Jay (who is always nearby and so my guess is this Blue-Jay is the partner) comes and gets all the food. So, here are some snap-shots of it coming, taking the peanuts and flying away with me standing about 5-6 feet away. Sorry the pictures are not very clear as I have to zoom to take them; also the place has lots of shade. Please click on to see the bigger version.