Don’t prune your forsythia, lilac or mock orange yet. Anything you cut off now will result in that much less of a flower show this spring. Except for these and many other spring-flowering shrubs, however, March is a fine time for pruning many trees and shrubs. It’s easy to see what to ...

Winter is a monster with icy claws, wrapping itself around the roof of the earth for months at a time. Winter’s icy breath chills the bones and chases animals and retirees to the south to escape. Trees drop their leaves in fear and hunker down. Animals fall asleep or grow thick fur as armor ...

Our planet’s journey around our star has carried us through the longest nights of the year, and spring is just around the corner. Life’s wondrous tapestry weaves its story of beauty, mystery, and miracle in the fabric of seasons, time, and space, and here we are in the midst of it all. ...

Many of our holidays seem tightly tied to season. Whether their origins are based on the cycles of the natural world or religion or history, they at least seem to “fit in” with the time of year. I write this article on Valentine’s Day. A day that seems to be more tied to ...

It may seem a bit early to be listening for frogs, but wood frogs rush the season. They emerge from beneath forest leaf litter in late winter, and as soon as the ice melts, they sing. A wood frog’s voice is hardly frog-like. One field guide describes a wood frog chorus as sounding, “like ...

Early signs of spring put smiles of anticipation on the faces of nature lovers. Longer days, warmer temperatures, and lawns slowly turning from brown to green are hard to miss. But the very first harbingers of spring are more subtle. If your daily travels take you along a stream that meanders ...