Plants in my Backyard

Here are some native, and one definitely non-native, plants in my backyard, in the mid-Atlantic east coast of the U.S. See if you recognize them from your yard.

Here’s a look along the edge of the woods near where I live. It may just look like a lot of green leaves but there are some nice and maybe not-so-nice plants in this photo.

Let’s start off with a nice native tree, the Paw-Paw. Paw-Paws (Asimina triloba) are the only local member of a large, mainly-tropical plant family and produce the largest edible fruit native to North America. Pretty neat, huh? There are lots of Paw-Paws in and along the edge of the woods in the area.

Here’s a cute little American Holly (Ilex opaca) tree. You can identify them easily because of their distinctive leaf shape. They are easy to see in the woods during winter because they keep their leaves all year. You probably don’t want to run barefoot in the yard around them because the leaves are spiked.

Another common tree in this area is the Flowering Dogwood (Cornus florida). It has pretty white flowers in the spring.

A plant you seem to see all over the place is the Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia). It seems to grow almost anywhere. The five-leaf pattern makes it very easy to spot.

The May Apple (Podophyllum peltatum) is a pretty little plant with five leaves that looks like a little umbrella. I’m not sure why the fruit is called an apple, but it is obviously not related to an apple tree.

Here’s one everyone who plans to spend time in or around the woods should learn to recognize. It’s the native plant that everyone has heard about, Poison Ivy (Toxicodendron radicans). Can you spot it in the first picture at the beginning of this post with all the other green leaves?

OK, this one is definitely not native but what a beautiful stand of bamboo! I can see this bamboo (sub-Family Bambusoideae) from my bedroom window. We planted one cane in the backyard about 8 years ago and it’s grown to a small bamboo forest. Here you can also see the ‘baby’ bamboo shoots coming up in the spring. We harvest these and cook them up in a stew. Yum!

There are still a lot of plants I don’t know the names of but I’m working on identifying them by their leaves and I will update this post when I have more information. If you know what these plants are, please send me a note. Thanks!!