A brief tour of the garden now that things have kicked off for spring.
Let’s start with the flowering cherry, which was a birthday gift from my mother-in-law not long after we moved in. The bees are loving the flowers – the tree was just buzzing with them. Speaking of wildlife – I just hung the hummingbird feeder out this morning and the birds have been dive bombing it like crazy. They’d better watch out that they don’t become prey to the Coooper’s hawk I spotted sitting on the garden gate yesterday.
The most obvious marker of spring – besides the daffodils, which I didn’t get a good picture of, are the grape hyacinths. They’ve self-seeded all over the place so I never know quite where they’re going to show up.
The iris are coming on nice and strong – no flowers yet but the foliage has its own beauty. I’m looking forward to flowers in a week or so.
I have always wanted a magnolia tree, so last year when we created a new garden in our front yard we put one in. Unfortunately a lot of the side branches got broken by the snow, but this is our best hope of having at least one magnolia blossom. They’re such fragile, but beautiful, plants.
We don’t look after this tree at all. We never water it, and we forget to prune it until it gets some kind of wilting disease – which it didn’t get this year. We’ll have to high grade the flowers so we get some – instead of too many! – good peaches this year.
The pulsatilla have almost gone over for the year – I was too slow to catch them at their peak bloom. They were so gorgeous, and nice robust plants compared to what weaklings they looked like when I first planted them. Guess they like where they’re living!
We had more of these but I planted them in a spot that’s a bit too dry for them, so they didn’t survive as well as I’d hoped. I love the spring colour that primulas bring to the garden, as other plants are just greening up, these are shouting with colour.
Finally, here are some buds on the Japanese maple in our new front garden, the same garden that houses the magnolia. The stem of the maple has a crack in it and we’re worried it might not survive too long, but if it’s putting out buds like this I expect a full head of leafy hair this summer!
So if you’re lamenting that spring hasn’t yet come (especially those of you on the east coast), here’s a little pick-me-up for a cold day.
Next week I won’t rub in the early flowers. 🙂
Such gorgeous blossoms, Sarah. Please, please just let the peach tree be.
It’s survived without put help this long…
In so relieved that most of the spring flowers are later where I live, because we’re expecting a blizzard today, and it will likely rip the few early blooms to shreds. ☹️ So I am vicariously enjoying your garden!
Bad news about the spring storm. Glad you could vicariously enjoy my garden!
They are par for the course. To be honest, I enjoy hanging on to winter a little longer
You make us jealous. With a bit of luck our apple tree will blossom in a few weeks. In Vienna the trees along the boulevards are in bloom.
Your blooms will come soon enough! (hopefully)
The pulsatilla shot is absolutely divine.
Thank you!