More April Flowers

Yes even the big leaf maple has flowers on it.

A rescued apple tree is budding.


Rescued tulip and hyacinth. 

Polygonia (anglewing) butterfly   Did you notice the other insect under it's wing?

the humble violet 

the butterfly rests on the candytuft. 

the underside of this butterfly looks like a dead leaf, so when it folds it's wings it's almost invisible.

The nashi has bloomed and there's bright color from rescued heathers and shrubs.

even the dead tree is beautiful. lichen and insect homes. 

the forget me nots 

a tangle of plants

did i mention there were a lot of forget me nots? 

violets and forget me nots. self seeders and almost invasive, but so pretty.

Strawberries are blooming, with a few forget-me-nots to keep them company.

lunaria annua, honesty or money plant. it gets silver disks for seeds pods later in life.

huckleberry blossoms

white maple leaves sprouting, as delicate and colorful as flowers.

Clematis that was rescued from M&L Brown's garden. Notice one flower has 6 petals, instead of the usual 4.

 

April Garden Color

It's April, only a few days have passed since my last entry, but there is more color and more blooming.

 

Bergenia cordifolia. I've heard that one can expect hummingbirds once these bloom.

The backside of the blossom is just as beautiful.

The flowers and seed pods of the Pieris Japonica.

The new leaves on this variety called Pieris Forest Flame are so brightly colored one could mistake them for flowers.

Even close up they seem to want to be flowers. 

The nashi tree is almost blooming. Time to start watching for catepillars. 

Candytuft in white.

Forget me not in blue.

Hyacinth in Pink. 

Wallflowers in orange and yellow. 

Wallflowers in deep orange and almost eggplant. 

Even the boxwood shrub is blooming. I intend to make this one a topiary, but it hasn't spoken to me yet to tell me what it wants to be, so it remains untrimmed and blooms.

Meanwhile the Chinese Lantern slowly decomposes revealing its inner child.

End of March Garden Color

I took a tour around my yard to see what color I could find at the end of March and beginning of spring. This what I found in my Pacific Northwest garden in the suburbs of Vancouver. 

I start with the humble dandelion. Beautiful, fun, edible, but still called a weed.

The Kerria Japonica Plenifflora is a shrub that ends up looking like a bunch of dandelions lept up into the air.

I rescued many dandelions from Holland Park 2 years ago. Bulbs had been dug up and tossed aside into the woods after the season was over.

I didn't know what they were like when I planted them, but now I know they are all kinds.

They really add a touch of bright to everything.

 The variegated ivy changes to multiple shades of yellow and green.

The spurge laurel has flowers of green .

The indian plum is one of the first plants to leaf out, and one of the first native species to flower.

The wild orchids hide in the grass, and just give a hint of pinky/purple.

The huckleberries are blooming.

The hyacinth smells beautiful, this one is such a pale shade of pink.

The Pieris Japonica is finally blooming. This plant was rescued from a house that got torn down a few doors away. After all these years after being ripped out of the ground and replanted, it's finally recovered enough to start blooming.

The heather is always lovely color early in the spring.

The chinese red cabbage I left behind in the ground survived and is beautiful with it's purple highlights.

The periwinkles are blooming. Watch out for these in your yard, they will spread and take over. Keep them in a pot and save yourself a lot of work!

The grape hyacinth are everywhere now and my favorite of all. Each year I dig some up and move them to a new location. The original bulbs we dug up from across the street 20 years ago the day before they bulldozed the house and subdivided the property.

Some color is not from flowers. This wild geranium has touches of color in the leaves even though it's long before it will bloom.

The rhubarb I planted along the street with yucca plants is showing it's brilliant scarlet stems.

Hands stretching up.  The peony is reaching for the sun.

This variety of pieris japonica has such bright red new leaves you could mistake them for flowers.

The berries on this small shrub stay all winter. Need to find the name for this one.

 The spirea also has leaves of many colors.

The wallflowers are about to bloom. This one seems to want to be almost pink.

While with this one you can see the orange and yellow just about to burst out.

 

I stilll have to look closely to find flowers at the end of March, but spring is definitely in the air.

Breakthrough

I planted bulbs under the Red Alder tree. I let the leaves remain on the ground where they fall in autumn. This is the unexpected delightful result that is happening every spring now.

 

 

 

Flowers in June

foxgloves on the path to the new mini-forest on the corner we planted

columbine, foxglove, sage, and wild daisy

lupin flower from above

foxglove, daisy, columbine, spirea bush (with the yellow leaves), tomato, zucchini, and tiny beet seedlings