Roll call to Spring
Stopping to smell the flowers By Arlene Marturano marturano@yahoo.com

Just as teachers call roll in their classes, gardeners call roll among their garden plants and visitors. Especially in late winter and early spring when dormancy breaks across the Midlands, gardeners have daily data to note and record. They jot down the dates of a flurry of firsts: bulbs to emerge, spring shrubs to flower, leaf buds to appear, sightings of migratory birds and butterflies, appearance of insects, pollen release, sounds of frogs, crickets and whippoorwills, nest making, egg laying and hatching of birds, tadpoles in the pond.

A gardener's records of the date of the first (or last) occurrence of natural events in their annual cycle provide a database for comparison of events over time. When records of individual gardeners are compiled and compared on a regional or national scale, they present a history of climate since the natural events are temperature sensitive. One source of evidence for global warming comes from the changes recorded in natural cycles.

The science of the study of the times of recurring natural phenomena is phenology. Almanacs use phenological data to make predictions. On a national level, phenological events document variables affecting human activities including health, planting and harvesting time of food crops, predictions of drought and fire risk, and even recreation time to view fall color, spring wildflowers, or animal migrations.

Luxurious lorepetalum in Rosewood

Thomas Jefferson and Henry David Thoreau's detailed records of the periodic plant and animal life cycle events on their property are still of interest to scientists today. One- hundred fifty years after the publication of Walden, scientists are "teaming up with Thoreau" to compare and contrast his meticulous blooming, breeding, and migration charts in Concord, Massachusetts, with today's data. They are finding an accelerated spring with plants flowering earlier and migrating birds returning earlier, both signs of warmer temperatures.

A number of projects encourage the public to collect and submit phenological data. The USA National Phenology Network sponsors Project Budburst each spring. Participants observe specific native tree and flower species in their locale and submit reports to an online database at www.budburst.org .

Fabulous forsythia in Heathwood

A Columbian's garden is like Jefferson's Monticello or Thoreau's Walden, a calendar of data contributing to a profile of the planet. The roll call of February garden plants already in bloom across Columbia includes crocus, daffodil, quince, ornamental apricot, forsythia, bridal wreath spirea, yellow jessamine, tulip and star magnolias, lorepetalum and creeping phlox.