🌷 Tulip time | Outdoorsy Newsletter

Welcome to another special edition of Outdoorsy.

In the illustrated words of Philly-based artist Dani (@gardenfullofslugs), tulips are blooming and it’s all for us.

In this edition:

☀️ This weekend’s weather outlook: Warm and partly cloudy. Let’s go outside.

— Paola Pérez ([email protected])

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Tulips are blooming across the Philadelphia region, so we gathered a handful of places to see them, and even take some home with you.

Here’s a preview of our guide:

🌷 In Dilworth Park in Center City, the display is priceless, literally. Consider the 43,000 tulips a perfect backdrop for your lunch break.

🌷 At Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, stroll along the Flower Garden Walk and through the Idea Garden near the visitor center. (Pro tips: Buy tickets in advance. And if you need a ride there, check out the new OurBus service.)

🌷 And Holland Ridge Farms in New Jersey boasts 100 different varieties of 8 million tulips. Act fast: the season ends April 27.

Get more details and find tulip festivals and pick-your-own-adventures.

🎤 Now I’m passing the microphone to Jason Nark, who reports on rural parts of Pennsylvania and the outdoors far from city life.

Trout can get carsick.

That’s why millions of rainbow, golden, brook, and brown trout have been crisscrossing Pennsylvania in large trucks on empty stomachs for the last month. They’re parked outside Sheetz, Rutter’s, and a few Wawas while drivers grab a coffee, use the bathroom, and do a fish check. They’re at rest stops and traffic lights and, eventually, wind up in buckets carried down to creeks by volunteers in every corner of the Commonwealth.

“Oh my gosh, look at the tail,” volunteer Kyle Kocher, 45, said about a particularly large rainbow trout that barely fit in a bucket.

“It’s huge,” his daughter, Marley, squealed.

Then, with a “here we go,” he tossed the bucketful of fish into a stretch of Unami Creek in Quakertown, Bucks County. One large golden trout, a bright color morph of the rainbow trout, swam in circles in a deep hole on the creek. — Jason Nark

Ride along with Nark and the network of volunteers helping the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission prepare for an annual rite of spring.

Every year on April 22, people around the world celebrate Earth Day — a moment to honor the planet we call home and spotlight the urgent need to protect its ecosystems amid growing environmental threats. But did you know Philadelphia helped put Earth Day on the map?

Former Daily News reporter Tom Cooney’s 1990 report looks back on the first official celebration of Mother Earth, when tens of thousands of people gathered in Fairmount Park. Read on for a history lesson on the city’s instrumental role in this green-conscious observation.

Things to do:

🌱 Join Awbury Arboretum for their Earth Day celebration (April 19)

🧹 Help clean up Bells Mill Road with Friends of the Wissahickon (April 19)

🎨 Get creative with kid-friendly activities at the Please Touch Museum (April 26)

🐦 Take on the City Nature Challenge with a free guided bird walk in West Fairmount Park (April 27)

Check out more events in and around Philadelphia.

If you haven’t caught the fleeting cherry blossoms yet, Yoshinos, Mt. Fuji, and Kwanzan cherries are in full bloom by now.

Got a camping trip coming up? Any new (or tried and true) trails you’re taking on? Is there a cool outdoorsy club we should join? Email me your recommendations.

I’ll be bringing Outdoorsy to your inbox every Friday starting on June 6. Until then, look out for one more edition of this newsletter in May.

👋🏽 Take care out there!

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