Early Spring

 

It's exciting to see early signs of  spring everywhere.  The heather is just coming into its own...

 ...and the forsythia has its own flamboyant beauty.

Near the end of January each year, I check the bare forsythia branches and break off a few to take indoors.  They're quite attractive in their simplicity in a jar or vase of water on their own.  Within 7-10 days the delicate yellow flowers appear...and stay for a couple of weeks.  How can that be?  How do they know to burst into bloom without roots of nurturing mother tree?

 

 This sweet little primrose surprised me as it came to life from last year's treasures, after I left it in a protected planter, out of the rain.  As I checked out the yard today the mini daffodils beckoned as did the periwinkle-blue grape hyacinths.  To my surprise the buds on the camelia bush were thick and showing color.

But even at this hour, nine o'clock at night, there are signs of spring.  A chorus of frogs is serenading our whole neighborhood from the green space across the street.  It's such a phenomenal concert.

Another delightful surprise greeted my eyes as I pulled the curtains last night.  There rising in all its splendour was the full moon of February making its grand appearance on the last day of the month - spectacular.  

I am thankful for these sensory pleasures, so prevalent and so natural and so beautiful.  There is so much beauty and so much to learn from these ordinary, yet really most extraordinary things.  

Perennials the Faithful

Welcome to my garden! After many days of rain the sun broke through for us late this afternoon. It was such fun poking around the garden, pulling several pails worth of those ubiqutous weeds, transplanting a plant or two and planting a basket of fuchsia colored wave petunias!

The first picture is the focal area of the retaining wall with a close up of the hen planter with Creeping Jenny-which survived the winter beautifully-it is a perennial. The old shoe, which is one of Andrew's old work boots, has been on display for many years by now. It stays out all winter and the hen and chicks inside grow without fuss or muss.

Foxgloves, biennials, come up year after year and I look forward to their blooms. As you can tell this one is just peeping through. I do have a virulent deep rosy purple in another area of the garden but mostly there are white and mauve colored ones. It seems to me that I transplanted a couple of white ones when we moved to this place 24 years ago. Where the purply ones came from-well that's the miracle and charm of the garden.

A few weeks ago (May22) I posted the arrival of the first rose. Today I noticed how full the bush had become. Gardening is so much fun. I thank God for this privilege.

And if you don't garden, no worries...just remember that:

"Kind hearts are the gardens;
kind thoughts are the roots;
kind words are the flowers;
kind deeds are the fruits."
- English Proverb