Think green!

Spring fever alert!

Oh, feel that circadian rhythm! That broth of seed and tuber! Underground machinations! Skyward squackings!

Yes, spring is on the cusp. We promise.

But if winter has gotten you down, here are some things to cheer your way forward:

• Think luna moths and hostas and artichokes. That’s Kathleen O’Connell’s Green Man pictured at left. She’s an associate professor of visual communication at the Herron School of Art and created Green Man —a nod to her Irish heritage—to capture the mood for this year’s Janus “Green with Envy” Ball on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, at the Indiana Roof Ballroom in Indianapolis. Janus Ball is organized by the Friends of Herron, a community support group for the school and gallery. Attendees of the Janus Ball, known for its wild costumes, are encouraged to come dressed in creative ways befitting the theme. Celtic band Hog Eye Navvy and dance/rock band Trinia and the Gypsies will provide the entertainment. Tickets to Janus Ball are $100 per person or $150 for patron level. For more information or to purchase tickets, call Jennifer Martin at 317-920-2494.

http://www.herron.iupui.edu/

• Get ready for the coats of many colors unfurling on the Bloomington campus when 35,000 tulip bulbs bloom, compliments of an autumn planting by the Campus Division.

• Hit the Wylie House Museum annual historic seed sale tomorrow (March 3), 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., in Bloomington to buy seeds from 325 historic herbs, flowers and vegetables, all grown in America prior to 1850. (Or E-mail libwylie@indiana edu for purchasing info)

http://www.indiana.edu/~libwylie/

• Look for signs of growth in the sunchokes section of the IU Northwest Anthropology Club’s Native American Garden. A bit of paradise close to the IUN School of Medicine operation, the garden features white flour corn, pole beans and squash growing together, plus watermelon, amaranth, lamb’s quarter, pumpkins, birdhouse bottle gourds and more. But the sunchokes are all you’ll see active in the early spring plot; it’s a brown potato-like root, a relative of the sunflower. The sunchoke’s flavor has an earthy cast with hints of artichoke.

• Keep an eye out for the canopies of cottonwood, sycamore and green ash, above a field of wildflowers and other native flowering plants, along a ribbon of riverbank flood plain near downtown Indianapolis. An initiative of the Center for Earth and Environmental Science at IUPUI has spurred a transformation of this green space to its 19th-century splendor.