Hepatica, Liverleaf, Liverwort, White Woodland Hepatica 'Alba' (Hepatica nobilis)

Hepatica, Liverleaf, Liverwort, White Woodland Hepatica 'Alba'
Hepatica nobilis

Hepaticas bear white blooms here in Missouri. I grow them mostly for the leaves, which are quite beautiful.

Susan, what beautiful foliage! Do these bloom only in the spring?

Yes, the natives do, anyway. And the blooming is almost finished by the time the new leaves unfurl. It is one of the earliest wildflowers here. But it makes a lovely groundcover in shady moist spots. I just have one clump for now, but I have seen large growths of it in the bottomlands and around waterways. Here is the way it looked a week before: only last year's dead leaves to back up the blooms.

That is so neat.

Ha, I should have looked at this pic better before posting it...the leaves you see are actually the new ones coming up.

I just love to see the small flowers and appreciate there beauty. So many times they go unnoticed.

It is also sort of fun to get flat on the ground to take the pictures!

Getting back up is not as much fun for me with my bad knees!

Another trait we share! Bad knees. I also have arthritis in my hands and elbows. Boy, do I know it during gardening season.

I do too. My, my, my we do have a lot in common. I need one knee replaced. It has been operated on twice. I will never be able to work in the yard as I do now after having this done. The other knee has not benn operated on, but is being worn out because I depend upon it so much. I have severe osteoarthritis in my hands and right elbow. My joints are not a pretty sight.

No one told me when I was young that a person could just wear out their joints, but I think that is what has happened to us. I have not noticed arthritis in more sedentary people, just those of us who really work hard physically. What a shame...there are so many things we eventually have to give up.
My husband is a big believer in glucosamine chondroitin and has taken it for several years now. He no longer complains about his knees. I just take aspirin...I tried Celebrex and a few other drugs with no success.

I very seldom take anything because most pain relievers upset my stomach. I did take glucosamine chondroitin and it really helped.The only pain reliever that works for me besides the prescription pain killers (which I have had to use about 2 times in 4 years) is Alleve. Have you tried it? My husband keeps telling me to quit working in the yard (I have several partially slipped vertebra in my back too). But I think that's what keeps me from having to be operated on ... I have strong muscles. I feel much better when I am moving and keeping the "wheels" greased so to speak. I usually put the pain out of my mind as best I can. It's the mornings when getting up and getting moving I notice it the most.

Yes, me too. I roll out of the bed with a moan. I exercise to a taped video on MWF that helps me keep some flexibility and builds some strength. My back and neck usually hurt the most in the morning, I wonder if I have arthritis in those joints as well. I'm not much on going to the doctor...I don't like taking a lot of medication either. Sorry to learn about your slipped vertebrae...that can be very painful.
I agree that exercise helps, except that I tend to overdo it when I get involved in a big project. I am slowly learning to take more breaks and even stop for the day in order to hold down the inflammation.

Yep, I also like to finish what I start. I work into the night sometimes, especially when it is hot. My neighborhood security officers all know me because I am in the yard a lot. One, Carl, especially has become a real friend. About 2 years ago I had been digging up large shrubs for hours in the flowerbed next to the front of my house. He had seen me working several times as he passed by. It was about 2 AM and I was still working. I had spot lights shining on where I was digging. I had managed to dig a very deep hole as I removed all kinds of roots. All he could see from the street was the lower portion of my body sort of draped over landscape timbers because by this point I was lying down to dig even deeper and sort through the dirt. Poor guy ... he came running up yelling my name thinking I had passed out. I had a hard time getting up from this awkward position, so then he thought I was suffering from a stroke or a heart attack! I kept telling him I was okay, but Carl must have been in a panic. Immediately, he called EMS and told them a lady had collapsed working in her yard and he didn't know for how long I had been down because it was after 2 in the morning. In the middle of this call, he realized I was okay and cancelled it. We laugh about it, but I was so sorry for worrying him. (Gee, I need to hit preview to check my typing ... lots of typos above)

That's hilarious, Hazel!
Here is the last thing I REALLY overdid myself on. It was last spring.

Outstanding, Susan, what a great job you did. I really like the flowerbeds. It is so relaxing and peaceful looking. I bet you enjoy resting there. I see you like to play with brick too! I would take photos of my last year's project, but it is raining so I'll describe it. I used patio pavers to extend my cement patio and then I made my big old dog his own small patio area in front of his doghouse and a pea gravel pit to in which to snooze surrounded by edgers. I edged a large area in front of the dog's patio with edgers and then placed a lot of mulch over the dirt for Bernie also. When it becomes scorchingly hot, I wet Bernie's patio, pea gravel pit and the mulched area so he has places where he can go to stay cool without digging up my whole yard. I used edgers to make a small fake riverbed to steer the drainage from the yards to my west when it rains really hard. I placed small granite rocks in it. The BBQer/smoker sits on a small area I made with patio pavers. All of these areas had to be at different levels because my yard slopes in 2 directions. I made 2 plant areas under my pistache tree and surrounding my large birdfeeder (made out of a small satellite dish on a 4 inch in diameter and 5 foot tall pole). These are at different levels surrounded bt edgers and are filled with mulch. Containered plants and small figurines sit on bricks hidden by the mulch with ground cover hid most of the mulch. The hardest part (and most boring) for me was buying the materials, putting them in my SUV, taking them out of the car and transporting them to the backyard.

Handling the bricks (and for you, edgers) is really hard on one's finger joints. I still have about 300 used bricks for another project. They had been laying in the vegetable garden as crude, uneven, weedy paths for years. There were at least 4 different sizes, so I had to just use a running bond pattern instead of something more fancy. I have lots and lots of flagstones here that I laid in years past...patios, paths, and walls. No wonder we have arthritis.
Right now I have worn myself out cleaning the woods (2 acres or more) of dead branches and fallen trees. 20 years of accumulation made it look like some logging crew went through and left tops, or like a tornado had struck at some point. What a job! Now I need to tackle the blackberries and sawbriers that made the job so difficult. It sure looks better, though.

You sure have a lot more work to do than I do! I feel lazy now.

I don't believe you could be lazy if you tried...(I can't). When I get older (soon) I will have to give up this place because there is endless maintenance on the house and the yard. I love having a large spot (about 4 acres total), though.

My backyard is very small as is the yard inside my side fence. The outside sideyard is longer, but not very wide. My front yard is larger than most in the neighborhood, but still relatively small. I am putting in a lot of perennials now because once I have a couple of operations, I won't be ale to take care of it like I do now. I have been wondering how I am going to pull all of the nutgrass out of the beds when I am not able to be on my knees anymore.

We have a friend who had both kneecaps replaced with artificial knees...titanium? (Can't remember what it is, something new that lasts longer than the previous material.) Anyway he can't bend his knee backward much when standing...like to kick loose from being tangled in briers.
I have started just sitting down on the ground, sitting on a bucket, etc to try to stay off my knees. Yours must be worse than mine.
Is there a systemic herbicide that will work on the nutgrass? I remember they were spraying it at a garden in St. Louis one year because when you pull it, little "nuts" remain in the ground and sprout as more weeds. Of course then you must leave it to die a slow death right there in your flowers...I can't seem to do that.

Yes, I bought it, but when I read the directions I was scared to use it. It stated that if it came in contact with the ground, it would kill any plant and nothing would grow for a year. It kills any plant with which it comes in contact. The nutgrass grows next to my other plants so it is difficult to coat it without harming my wanted plants. For years I have been planting annuals or using containers where the nutgrass is the thickest so that periodically I am able to dig down for enough to find the "nuts". I placed deep mulch around the containers and annuals and the nuts seem to work their way closer to the top of the soil after a while. Then, they are easier to dig up.

Your picture look more like the sharp lobed hepatica - it have the same kind of leaf shape and marks on it - both are consider sub species of the same species.