Spring Emerges Urgent

A Personal Journey of Spring through Ecology, Native Plants, Farming, Experiences, Feelings, and Musical Amalgamation

Nothing in nature is ever really stagnant. Nothing is normal except change. Sure, change can sometimes be orderly, and occurring in such a way that it stirs understanding through recognizing patterns. But the changes themselves are different on some level, whether that be at the cellular level or through a grand change to a landscape, such as a wild native plant field slowly transitioning to a deep forest over decades. In winter, when snows occur in South Carolina the snowfall as a whole seems similar to the last snowfall in memory, in that it appears white when freshly fallen and can blanket the ground. Yet, on the micro level no two snowflakes are alike, so they say? The results being different in some way extrapolate to show that change is always occurring, even on levels we as humans do not perceive.

As the hand of winter slowly begins to loosens its grip, until a certain point, just like with a hand loosening its grip on an object slowly; for a while when the hand is loosening, the grip is still there and the majority of what is felt by the object within the clasps of the grip understands this. But there is change occurring within the new micro space within the hands grip. Until, just like in mathematics and physics, there is a point where the equation changes, and the outcome starts to work out.

That sudden burst of growth in spring seen from native paints within South Carolina, after the mostly human perceived dormant period for the plants in winter, is not actually sudden. It is actually a continuing process that started eons ago through perhaps cellular memory in recognizing patterns and the necessary action the plant needed to take to survive. Just like not every animal (including humans) can survive change, neither does every plant. Living creatures of all types crawl out of the slimness of winter in the wild and show up in spring. “Only the tough survive” as the old saying goes. But being “tough” really includes also blending being smart, adapting, giving, and cooperating. Within a certain segment of the population, the process of leaving life (physical death) is actually a form of toughness, not weakening. Really, tough is the ability to balance and do all of these things.

Spring – ground level at Congaree National Park 2025

Once this critical juncture in the equation of winter’s releasing grip, and allowing spring to begin on the micro level occurs, there is a moment when many animals are able to see with all their senses. And the result is one that most celebrate internally. Celebration through awakening! Slowly the sleep state loosens its grip. Celebrating through conscious awareness and action, hopefully learning while having fun! And since we all in some distant connecting past event seem to have come from the dust of a star’s action, it can seem if the collective of nature all decided to wake up at the same time. This can be the relative viewpoint seen in comparison to the recent quiet slumber as a whole in winter in South Carolina. Later on in summer (or perhaps late spring in South Carolina) this same volume of action can appear the norm and not as stirring. Perhaps it’s because winter slowly speeds away into the mystery of time-space and time-space’s omni-present and baffling state of being.

Tool Lateralus live from September 20, 2001

But do we as humans all wake up at the same time each and every morning? Certainly not! Some wake up before dawn, at the crack of dawn, early morning, mid-morning, late-morning, mid-day, in the evening, and so on. Some humans seemingly never sleep, or sleep very small intervals, such as with insomnia. So it is the same with nature and native plants in spring, Spring is more than a moment of wild exaltation, it is an entire season that marches with purpose in every moment, much to the surprise to some people and animals that eventually grow accustomed to the new life in Spring that the Sun helps give as the alignment with the rotation of the Earth continues to shift.

Sunset at Huntington Beach State Park freshwater pond 2025

What is perhaps the most important aspect of communication with humans? It is not always talking. It is being in the moment, open, and listening. This leads to better understanding and leads to more effective communication from the internal mind of the listener. With nature and its native plants found within South Carolina, and across the planet, it is essentially the same action that leads to awareness of what spring really is during its entire period, from the spring equinox until the summer solstice. When the mass awareness of spring growth occurs to many in the animal kingdom in the beginning of spring, it can seem like a medical condition is exposing itself in the form of Spring Fever to the onlooker.

Perhaps Coreopsis lanceolata (lanceleaf tickseed) sprouts become apparent in the early weeks of spring leading to the lone yellow bloom that can eventually become a speckled yellow powder on the landscape. In the middle to latter side of spring the emergence of many ironweeds, such as Veronia gigantia (tall ironweed), can provide a surprise to modern humans in the form of emergence of plant life at a time when some think all the spring emergence had already ended. In fact it was probably just the internal excitement of early Spring Fever that had actually ended in the human leading to the continuation of ignoring the natural world internally that is common in modern humans most of the year. This is thanks in part to being detached from nature firsthand in many ways, unlike it was in the not too distant past for humans. Whether living in the most condensed inner-city environment trying survive, in an unnatural manicured suburban landscape fighting traffic day in and out, or near a rural field of monoculture crops, such as corn, soybeans, cotton, or slash pine trees (never seeing many native plants as far as the eye can see), there is an absence of noticing the cycles of the interconnection of the plethora of native plants, the soil, the weather, the animals, and so on, that leads to the continuation of life on Earth in long times scales rarely perceived. If the internal eyes of the individual are not open, and a specific effort of conscious awareness of this state of existence in these unnatural environments of living is not regularly practiced, it makes perfect sense that this aspect of what helps sustain life would be lost in the collective consciousness eventually. Does it result in the monoculture of the soul? Perhaps that is one way of saying it. Internal voids scream to be filled in many manifestations. Humans are inquisitive by nature; hence we have the strangeness of the modern world we find ourselves in.

Spring dogfennel at Huntington Beach State Park

The first signs along a waterway of Pontederia cordata (pickerelweed) emergence can stir the green spirit of humans and deer. Humans today see the color green where there was once grey just a week or two earlier during winter. The deer sees and smells the emergence of a lush hydrating green plant in pickerelweed that can help satiate its spring hunger. To the humans of generations past the spring emergence of pickerelweed also stirred the stomach, as well as the eyes, as the tender leaves are edible and were commonly eaten. Those left untouched in the mass stands of this pickerelweed plant continued to give with a beautiful splash of waterway blue flowering color for pollinators and eventually a mass amount of seed formation provided another form of enticement and satiation to the stomach. Typha lattifolia, or common cattail, also emerges in spring along the edges of water with the young tender greens promising a bounty of beauty and food, and other uses in its many parts of the plant over the breadth of its growing season life.

A reoccurring theme in one function of spring exuberance keeps emerging when examining the season of spring, movement and hunger. Living things in general move more when the temperature starts to warm, which occurs with more frequency as spring moves ahead towards the season of summer. Spring growth reminds us that the food all living things need to survive is about to become more abundant. This leads to more movement which allows the senses to take in more of nature’s wonders on many levels, which requires more food and water itself to sustain energy levels, as the cycle continues. Thanks to a collective memory in us all there is a knowing that this action will not continue without interruption into the future, which aids in the control of the movement during spring on some level to help preserve energy.

At some point imbalances in humans occur, whether that be from perhaps a scarcity of food, or a desire to make physical ease more abundant in the search for food. This leads to the ability of the body to perhaps experience more of this Earth on many levels as a side product. Humans are thinkers in the animal kingdom. Hunting and gathering can be tiring and dependent on so many natural factors. Humans want to live and love. So the idea of agriculture emerged perhaps 12,000 years ago, longer if one was to include previous geologic time scales. Spring is generally the time when agriculture in all its forms (environmentally-friendly, and not environmentally-friendly) begins anew. Agriculture has affected native plant communities in many ways since it came into existence. Native Plants and agriculture ride the wave of time side by side. It is inherent that one affects the other.

Natives, Vegetables, Farming, and Spring, Oh My!

So you have a time machine somehow and travel back to when the first settlers and colonists arrived in South Carolina. The land that you see is one of wilderness interspersed with Native American settlements and their impacts on the land. These impacts have been considered by most to be minimal and in ways that did not massively alter and damage the land thanks to their living habits. There are deep gigantic-sized hardwood, and cypress-tupelo forests stretching up most rivers and creeks from the entry points of the Atlantic Ocean to the Fall Line geologic area of the state (which crosses the state from the Savannah River around North Augusta, SC through Columbia, and to the NC state line in Chesterfield County). This marks the ending (or beginning, depending on which way you are traveling) of the surface Coastal Plain geologic area of the state. In between these waterways are vast stretches of pine trees and other hardwoods, some dense and some spaced out so that it has large expanses of ground level native grasses, perennials, annuals, shrubs, vines, and unique Carolina Bay plants. Occasionally one sees near a Native American settlement an organically (the only way until modern times) grown agriculture field. Parts of this ecosystem just described are essentially rotated to aid in the production of the land to help support indigenous populations to thrive while supporting the relatively small population compared to the carrying capacity of the land (today our population is unfathomable in size by comparison).

Article at www.nps.gov – National Park Service

Native American Plant Use

Glacier National Park-Montana – (much relevant info to anywhere in the country)

Music: Tom Petty: Wildflowers (1994)

Music: Stone Temple Pilots – Creep (1992)

Enter colonist agriculture. Growing monoculture crops was the name of the game. Rice or indigo along the coast of South Carolina were prominent examples. Why grow in such a way that clears massive amounts of land filled with native plants and animals and a healthy functioning ecosystem? For money! For profit! And since Europeans were unfamiliar with how the South Carolina and North American ecology thrived to benefit them as it naturally functioned, they strived to make the land more controllable and survivable on their own terms. No community locally needed as much rice, indigo, cotton, tobacco, etc. as was grown in the early plantation system. It was for the ability to accumulate wealth and “things” well beyond what is needed for everyday use. The result of these decisions is all around us today in our economic systems, our mentalities, our desires, in other words, what we view as a normal life in many ways today. The results were positive and negative, depending on what frame of reference point you take when analyzing the modern world. It helped bring along detachment from the natural world firsthand by a large percentage of the population (a percentage of population that continues to grow around the world today) without question. And remember this detachment to some degree was already a part of normal life in Europe through ecological impacts already made there before arrival to North America.

It brought an end to many native plants that may have been existence in small populations that were never noted or catalogued as existing. Farming is a settled and controlled way of living. And while the general consensus today is farming helps bring one in touch with the Earth in the modern world, in a way living in a city or suburb cannot, in reality, farming is not a natural way of living in an ecological sense. It changes an ecosystem, as opposed to being a participant in a natural ecosystem that is already functioning to varying degrees.

Small farms and community farms have always been different from large farms. The majority of farming today is monoculture, large and industrial in the coastal plain of South Carolina. The image of a family living in a house supporting themselves in all ways while growing enough food for themselves and helping nearby neighbors and townsfolk is almost something out of a fairy tale and pipe dream these days (despite a dedicated continuing small growth in percentage by those who go all out today with this method).

This aspect of reality of what perhaps could have been, and perhaps should have been does not change where we are now. Working together to improve the modern system of agriculture and perhaps not being afraid to overhaul the modern agriculture system in some way cannot be dismissed as a solution. Modern agriculture takes up half the Earth’s land surface, and about a quarter of South Carolina’s land (depending on how one wants to define agricultural land). Not to put any person or profession down, but also to not sugar coat anything, this is a tremendous amount of space that interrupts natural ecosystems and the resulting native plants found within them. And today, just like at the founding of the country, growing food is big business well beyond sustaining the appetite of the local population.

But wait! We have to eat! Hunting and gathering is simply not an option for most anymore. Can growing food and harvesting timber co-exist, while the people support wild native plant habitat and their ecosystems? The answer is yes it can be achieved, but it would take a paradigm shift in view by the population. That yes answer would arrive if current knowledge and experience starts to come from a deeper ecological understanding by the populace as a whole in an almost second-hand nature to the psyche. It is not easy to get there, but really nothing is ever easy. It was not easy at all to create the plantation and monoculture agriculture system. It took generations of dedication, planning, and sacrifice on many levels across society, including many unjust solutions to classes of society that did not agree, but had no choice to participate. The results included some detrimental and devastating actions on the land of South Carolina and the ecology of the coastal plain and entire state. So if there is hope in smaller farms (small is perhaps not exclusive, as a large farm operated the right way will work in its best fitting place) and the organic growing method movement, which occurs in sporadic small farms around South Carolina, as like in other states today, what do these do for native plants?

Spring bunny at Huntington Beach State Park 2025

Organic farming practices seek to minimize impact and work with nature, not against it, unlike other forms of agriculture. And in many cases these farms practicing true organic agriculture can add nutrients back to the soil and provide safe havens and food for some native insects, and many living creatures. Extra challenges from a production standpoint are inherent at some point with organics and other times not at all or perhaps less than conventional farming. Labor can be a little more intense than conventionally grown produce in some cases. Though in other ways, such as with the slow build-up of nutrients in the soil it can reduce labor stress by battling nutrient deficiency that can produce susceptibility to some crop diseases.

Synthetic herbicides (a norm in conventional agriculture) used can drift in the air and kill native plants. Pesticides can kill certain native pollinators (including some organic pesticides if not applied correctly). Believe it or not, even synthetic fertilizers can kill some native plants by favoring inadvertent extra fertilization to certain specific native plants in the wild and thereby outgrowing and killing the co-existing diversity of other native plants that do not benefit from these same synthetic fertilizers. The result is changing the ecology that would normally occur in the South Carolina wild. All of these consequences are added to the residual effect conventional agriculture can leave in the soil for years (not to mention in the bodies of people that consume conventional food). New studies always seem to confirm this logical conclusion that does not really need a scientific study to make sense when thought about rationally without fear from all outside societal angles clouding judgement.

Genetically modified organisms, or GMO’s, in conventional agriculture (a controversial issue since its field implementation birth in the early to mid-1990’s), continues to have its debatable points. But in the end it is a technology that was designed and is used to benefit the economics and landscape from a conventional farming point of view from its design. Any concerns for the ecology and health of crops, native plants and habitats, and the health of humans are a distant second. Organic growing methods and farmers seek to make the need for a GMO crop not even a need, thereby eliminating the exhausting energy needed to somehow justify this type of technology, while at the same time those justifying GMOs ignore the logical issues that seem to come from its implementation to begin with. But just like with any new technology that has a monetary interest in its own continuation, the GMO industry has a long money trail that leads down a road of conflicting interests of personal gain. Money trails are complicated in general with all industries, and are not always backed in careless selfish interest, but they always need to be monitored closely. This takes work because the money trail is usually behind a curtain with many complex locks. And not any one person seems to have all the keys.

Because of the plant and crop diversity sometimes inherently needed in organic agriculture for pest management, soil health, and the fact that organic agriculture is not subsidized in the same manner or scale as conventional agriculture, more native habitat and plants are bound to exist if the majority of agriculture follows organic growing guidelines, whether on a small scale or on a large scale. If free of constant profit margin stress that the corporate world brings through meeting quarterly earnings and economic growth that trickles into everyday thinking in many aspects of daily life, many farms could make enough to live, be happy, and provide true benefits to the planet and community by converting parts of private farmland to native plant habitat.

If farmers were to collaborate with other surrounding independent private farms and landowners to join this native habitat on each property in continuous bands across the countryside, the result could be something regenerative to native plants in the wild all while creating more diversity that could aid in beneficial insects to attack problem crop pests.

Local crop growth is more environmentally friendly from the environmental costs of all types that transportation long distances brings to the table. But if all the local growers destroy the ecosystem through harsh conventional practices, this defeats the purpose and benefits in many ways that growing locally brings. So how your food is grown matters, whether your food comes from far away or local.

And nothing changes the way the land is settled and society is living today. Local farmers in a collaborative manner would have to consider how to help feed urban and suburban areas close by. Many cities are on a scale of size that makes this a daunting, but not impossible challenge.

If the entire acre after acre of feeder corn, soybean, and cotton seen across the Grand Strand-Pee Dee and Coastal Plain areas of the state was converted to diverse organic farms, the impact on native plant ecosystems would be staggering. It would take time, patience, and perseverance though. Nature does not change on a dime back to a thriving ecosystem. The financial and learning challenges to farmers doing this are all very real and risky if one does not have sound and deep knowledge going into making these growing practice changes. These organic and ecologically friendly farms are not a success by planting seed, watering, spraying for every pest with chemicals pre-emptively and forgetting about it until harvest, or when an unnaturally harsh weather event affects the crop, as many conventional farms practice.

While not pleasant to talk about in some circles of humans, how food producing animals are raised, such as with cattle grazing for beef production, and raising chickens can affect the local native plant community. Despite the sometimes-repeated idea that raising animals for meat production always equals a net negative on the environment, some farmers are thinking outside the box and proving this does not have to be the case. Can there be a neutrality or net positive for native plants and the environment and still feed urban areas by switching practices? That remains to be seen because the percentage of animal farms of this type are still very low percentage-wise compared to the devastating impacts seen from industrial animal farms where the environmental and animal welfare problems are the unquestionable norm, in the majority of the cases. It’s an extensive and somewhat complicated issue that warrants continued open-minded research and development on all ends, all the way from a technological perspective to a common sense clear-minded down to Earth way of thinking.

True farming is diligent work and sometimes hard work. And considering the environment and the local ecosystem that supports native plants and their habitats is a noble and monumentally important task that is not appreciated in the modern world because the world is so detached first hand from the real world we live in. And the economy strains things additionally. It is really only natural this effort seems almost like a fairy tale at the moment. We know what we are born into as humans and maybe what we study academically, and in books and what culture infuses our minds with in a billion ways (some never perceived by anybody).

Someone born in a urban neighborhood can hardly be blamed for not fully comprehending where their food comes from on a deep and personal level. People need to be appreciated for all the challenges they overcome to survive in this world on a daily level. Sometimes when classes of people isolate and feel superior to other classes of society on both ends of the spectrum, the result is further isolation and feelings of an “us against them” mentality, when they feel the other group of people does not care about them. It creates undertows in the waves, so to speak.

The Ripple Effect

Spring leaf canopy at Congaree National Park 2025

Every action spirals out in one way or another. If time does not always move in a straight line according to many of the greatest progressive minds and physicists, then how can the actions we do move in a straight line? It has been seen in some equations that time loops in on itself as it moves. That would seem to interconnect actions that seemingly are separate. This needs to be considered when thinking about how we care for our crops, and native plants. The norm, or “conventional” method in agriculture since the early 20th century chemical infiltration of crop care has been to essentially kill anything that is not the intended vegetable or crop being grown, whether that be a weed that can compete for nutrients in some cases, including many native plants in a field, or an insect, or in some extreme cases, wild animals (and sometimes this happens secondarily through a chain reaction of habitat destruction to make way for crop land)

There is no debate that some things will be altered with any form of agriculture or farming. It happened even during pre-colonial times in North America with Native American farming practices. But one has to consider the interconnections of actions beyond the property line and the bottom line on an economic spreadsheet, or neither of those may exist if the land is decimated by actions only perceived by the immediate consequences.

The native plant diversity that existed before colonization was in part responsible for the areas of rich fertile soil that existed when the land was first cleared of native plants. Then with the exposed soil came mass erosion that helped wash away that soil at a much higher rate than would ever be possible in nature.

One also only needs to look back roughly a century ago and what happened with the cotton crop that was grown in the Piedmont geologic area as if nothing else mattered and how that fed the boll weevil killing that industry altogether. And long before a crop is planted, the land has to be cleared of what grows before it. The mass extirpation of many native plant communities all across the Coastal Plain and Piedmont to clear the land for the industrial crop fields during the early years of the country and mass deforestation in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s most certainly eliminated some native plants never catalogued as existing.

The Attitude of a Spring Plant

Spring is coming, spring is here, and spring has ended, all depending on when you are reading this. But remember spring in South Carolina is always an expression of the other seasons’ results in some way, even if undetectable to the everyday perception. If the norms are altered too quickly by natural forces such as sudden changes in weather patterns or with habitat destruction for all the many human purposes of doing so, spring will be lost, such as Rachel Carson wrote about in her landmark book Silent Spring. Maybe not in this lifetime, but one never knows. This is exemplified by the list of federally endangered plants that have this designation thanks to modern human actions, such as American chaffseed – Schwalbea americana L and many others.

Stand of spring blooming Borrichia frutescens at Huntington Beach State Park 2025

Celebrating the beauty of spring on an emotional level is a wonderful thing despite all of the long term ecological and environmental challenges that are coming to light in the collective human psyche (slowly)! But a sprinkling of understanding beyond the self and beyond immediate societal needs and wants during the time of spring emergence of native plants can help prevent a spring emergency in the future. Warming the soul is long term! It enhances the raw exuberance felt during spring comparable to the levels of rapid growth only seen in the warm and hot summer months to come!

Much like autumn, spring can be all seasons in one. Will it be a cold morning? Will it be warmer than expected? Will it be dry, or will get the “spring showers” they like to rhyme about? Will there be an early onset to sauna-like humidity that seems to find South Carolina a nice place to call home during the current geologic time scale of modern human-inducing change that some like to call the Anthropocene? Spring, like the season of autumn, really can be split into two seasons based on patterns observed over the years. Mid to late March has major differences from late May into early June. Native plants have known this. They know it on deeper levels than what humans can comprehend at the moment. As stated before, seasons are really just a never ending cycle of change that is nestled in with the mystery of understanding the true nature of time.

A native plant in spring that is coming to life after lying dormant in winter or germinating from seed dropped in the soil seed bank the prior year is beaming with defiant vitality. It is tender, new, and goal oriented! It is tender, but also tough and resilient (proved if it survived the attitude of winter). For comparison, human children and teenagers also have a resilience that is not seen in the same way later in life. A plant nipped by a hungry animal for food in spring, such as native seaside goldenrod (Solidago sempervirens), is vulnerable yet able to take this kind of abuse and continue to grow in step to its full goal of growing tall and producing seed. It almost seems to expect it (though in some areas the population of some animals outweighs plant resiliency these days due to many unbalancing factors). By autumn the seasonal life cycle of many a native plant mirrors that of humans during the maturing ages of physical life.

Polygala lutea – Lewis Ocean Bay –Spring 2025.

Native plants understand the spring window in its entirety in addition to the sub sections of spring. Perhaps the plants cooperate on some unknown level or learned to observe each other’s patterns of strength over time. The textures and timing of Emergence of native herbaceous perennials throughout spring speak of a greater wisdom with the solar alignments that humans seem naïve to during daily life more and more in industrialized countries. Native plants definitely are not in compliance with the one scale fits all time schedule of the modern world. The ironweeds (Veronia spp.) seem to like to sleep in during the awakening of early spring, allowing their more eager neighbors, such as the bloodroot (Sanguinaria canandensis) ephemeral to get their time in the sun of the forest they inhabit. Will there be a pine pollen wind storm this spring (or late winter as has been the case in some recent years with climate change seemingly taking more root), or will the rain showers subdue this coastal display? Large or small, spring’s umbilical cord to the growth of plants, and in part the vitality of the ecology of the land throughout the year brings urgency along with youthful celebration to the plant community.

Understanding and Feeling to Spring Forward

Many seasons of spring in the past have led to a feeling of vibrancy when I have surrounded myself with nature. It has been encompassing in times. In ways that are hard to explain. All seasons do this to humans in one way or another, I suppose. It in part shapes who we are. When I have embraced spring I have looked at tall loblolly trees and other species, put myself in their “shoes” and almost felt them growing. When one is in their youth the body can almost unconsciously follow the lead of spring and grow along with the plants. I have seen people in my life that seem to almost change their entire temperament during the season of spring, young and old, without them being aware themselves of the correlation. It’s as if a different person comes alive during spring weather months, only to go dormant when summer and the following seasons roll around. Spring seems to be more than a season; it is almost like a force, as seen in physics, like gravity for example. If spring is thought of as a force then this all continues to point towards a common source for spring and native plants!

As I have grown older and taken care of a vegetable farm garden on a daily basis through my work, the trials and challenges of fighting the natural order of spring, by finding order in plant growth for producing vegetables, when nature and the ecosystem are pulling the soil towards a different growth habit, have turned spring into a race and lots of work.

I once did a public talk about native plant gardening and vegetable gardening and how the two need to be combined for the benefit of all living creatures (humans included). While well received based on the feedback I got, something has lingered in me. It’s a feeling that myself, and society are really just scratching the surface on how these two should be incorporated together on a large scale. Native plants and agriculture can go side by side and native plants can easily benefit a vegetable garden, farm, and agriculture field. But to do this needs creativity and freedom to think outside the box and the ability to adjust and forecast changes that occur in nature year by year. Sometimes the freedom to act in this manner can be sorely lacking these days with corporate America now the main driving force in our food systems and mentality in many human thought processes.

You can educate and enlighten others as well as yourself. Everyone can generally agree, yet nothing seems to change sometimes on a large scale. It has in baby steps for sure, in some circles, which is good. But the machine keeps going in the background no matter how much small changes are made sometimes. It can be disheartening. It can also be encouraging to see small changes. It reminds me of a scene from an episode of the long-running TV show The Simpsons where an old tree is in danger of being cut down and Lisa saves the tree in the end. It’s a success to her. Yet in typical Simpson’s fashion, there is a very funny subtle joke in the background while she is celebrating that you have to be paying full attention to or you might miss it. A stream of logging trucks full of freshly cut trees are driving by as she celebrates her success. The scene communicates many points and counterpoints to the reality of the world we as humans have now created and wants and desires for a continuing way of life. Coupling this with our internal desire for preservation of natural interconnecting communities in nature that almost seem sacred in many ways these days to many can be a baffling experience.

Spring mushroom in tree-Congaree National Park 2025

The blossoming of a spring bud, the bacteria in soil that becomes active in spring that triggers a chemical reaction in many living things through the sense of smell, the promise of potential beauty to come in summer. There is also a tampering of spring exuberance because of an inner knowing of what summer can bring in South Carolina. The onset of this almost summer-like weather in late spring (early June) in the coastal plain of SC (heat and humidity, longer days, all leading to the marathon of summer in South Carolina) brings a change in all living things.

Most plant-based food for Native Americans and many early colonists were eaten from strictly native plants (perhaps some trade between distant tribes existed at times with non-native plants). Could a food market exist that at least partially incorporates native plants? Say one that aims for at least 25 percent native? Organic seasonal cattail root on sale for $1.99/lb. Pickerelweed bundles wrapped and cut. Echinacea root as a remedy for ailments. Carolina rose (Rosa carolina) tea as a favorite at the local café sold in place of imported teas. It’s conceivable, but not probable in the current market except on a small scale. Not because it’s not possible, but more because of generations of humans now expecting food to be something completely different, the mindset of many, and the inherent logistic issues of transitioning. It would have to start small with passionate local farmers not beholden to outside pressures forcing actions that go against core values. It would thrive with growing local support from an understanding and compassionate community of citizens that want to learn in the process and recognize the heritage and roots of the community that go back further than a certain time period that lingers strong in recent memory. An example is the 1930’s depression era or other times of societal stress. The Great Depression was an era when the new norms of that time being necessary and created, and now in modern times sometimes romanticized as norms, were the result of many years of abuse (not usually from intentional mal-intent) on the ecology of South Carolina for decades prior.

Old and New (and Pine Cones)

What’s old is new again is how the saying goes. And there is also nothing new under the sun. Both of these sayings are true on a whole other level. Even the sayings, which are old, can be brand new to the ears and yet at their core are more ancient than human beings. Is all matter merely energy condensed to a slow vibration (see academic debate here)? Did everything originate from space dust? Late comedian Bill Hicks and the late physicist Albert Einstein would argue these points respectively and from different points of view in their respective extremely different lives.

Solidago at author’s home garden-day before summer solstice 2025

When I moved to my rural home in the Upper Coastal Plain (lower sandhills area) of South Carolina from the piedmont geologic area of South Carolina at the start of my teen years with my family we encountered a plant all around the fenced in yard and surrounding immediate property in all its grandeur. They were tall pine trees that we were told at the time in 1991 were roughly 80+ years old. Nothing new it would seem, as there are plenty of pine trees in the piedmont region of the state in these modern post-cotton boll weevil times (in an unnatural way compared to the distant past most of the time, though in urban and suburban areas of the piedmont what is seen in a landscape is mostly hardwoods). It was March of that year and having freshly moved to a new area, our minds were not honestly honed immediately into identifying plants, as would be logically expected as the case with a family move, even when plants were the majority of what surrounded us in eyesight of the landscape. Spring was just starting in those early days at the new home and the tall pines immediately around the house did eventually start to produce young small green pine cones attached. Again, nothing out of the ordinary to peel the mind away from getting adjusted to a new school and tiny town 7 miles away for me.

But as spring turned to summer and turned to fall, I realized these pines were new to me and something I had never personally encountered up close. It would seem that this pine tree was new to my parents also, at least first hand, because they started pointing out the unusually large pine cones being formed and eventually falling on the ground. The pine cones seemed so freakishly huge my parents thought they would make great decorations for the house in one area. So they did. I still have some of the same cones, 30+ years old as they are today. They even gave some of the dried open pine cones to my grandparents in the mountains of Virginia as a novelty Christmas gift that year. They are something certainly alien in that part of the country.

30+ year old pine cones from author’s teenage home in SC

The largest of the pine cones were from the one and only longleaf pine (Pinus palustris). There were most likely some loblolly pines on the immediate property but the largest pine cones of the mature landscaped longleaf pine are what we were seeing as something new under the sun, even though as a plant in its current state of being matter, it was old and had a story so rich and detailed beyond our comprehension.

The native pine trees of South Carolina are just one of many native plants that ebb and flow, adapt, die, migrate, and change over long periods of time. Each changing with the seasons of the year to help keep food and life of all types flourishing in this mind-blowing interconnection found in the cosmos!

The sun will have its say for Earth in the end though. And the season of summer is a small example of that expression to come from the Sun!

Music in Order of Appearance in Article

Claude Thornhill and His Orchestra: Snowfall (1941)
Darshan Ambient (Michael Allison): The Mystery of Sleep (2013)
Chronotope Project: Dawn Treader (2015)
Soundgarden: Taree (2012)
Sade: Kiss of Life (1993)
Nirvana: In Bloom (1991) (The funny music video version)
Tool: Lateralus (2001) (live from Portland Maine on September 20, 2001)
Ludwig Van Beethoven: Violin Sonata No. 5 – “Spring Sonata” (1795-1801)
Roy Ayers Ubiquity: Everybody Loves the Sunshine (1976)
Tom Tom Club: Wordy Rappinghood (1981)
Cusco: Inca Dance (1985)
Run D.M.C.: Rock Box (1984)
Tom Petty: Wildflowers (1994) (home recording music video version)
Stone Temple Pilots: Creep (1992)
Nirvana: The Man Who Sold The World (1993, live on MTV Unplugged, unedited) (cover of 1970 David Bowie song)
The Smashing Pumpkins: Beguiled (2022)
Carina Round: Simplicity Hurts (2009) (sung by candlelight with rain drop beats)
Neil Young: Heart of Gold (1972)
Temple of the Dog: Hunger Strike (1991)
Faith No More: Evidence (1995)
Phillip Bailey: Children of the Ghetto (1984) (cover of Real Thing’s 1977 song)
Tori Amos: Spring Haze (1999)
Johnny Cash: Hurt (2002 and its touching music video) (Remake of Nine Inch Nails 1994 song)
Garbage: Only Happy When it Rains (1995)
Fleetwood Mac: Hypnotized (1973)
Ozzy Osbourne: Over the Mountain (1981)
Lynard Skynard: Simple Kind of Man (1973)
Mercury: Trying (2023)
Porno for Pyros: Pets (1993)
Alice in Chains: Would (1992)
Willie Nelson: The First Rose of Spring (2020)
Ozzy Osbourne: See You on the Other Side (1995)
Mercury: Born in Early May (2024)

Informational Videos in Order of Appearance in Article

PBS: Naturescene: Awakenings – Poinsett State Park in the Coastal Plain during early Spring (1980)
PBS North Carolina – How Indigenous Farming Practices Help the Soil (Lumbee tribe today- just over the S.C. border)
Growing a Greener World episode 305: Polyface Farms – Ecologically minded meat farm near Staunton, Virginia
BC Farms and Food: Farming With Native Plants to Bring Back the Bees
Growing a Greener World episode 310: Detroit’s Urban Renewal – Urban Gardening

A Personal Journey of Spring through Ecology, Native Plants, Farming, Experiences, Feelings, and Musical Amalgamation