After a beautiful weekend of almost 90 degree temperatures a week ago, the flowers on our fully loaded ‘Red Jade’ crabapple all came tumbling down after a huge rainstorm. In one day it went from this
'Red Jade' Crabapple
to all green with a few remaining white flowers. Good thing I took a picture beforehand!
This next picture shows a closer view of one of my favorite Spring plants, Euphorbia polychroma. This huge plant and its neighboring offshoots originally came from a plant my sister-in-law brought from Canada. We still call it the “Toronto” plant. Its very neatly-shaped, chartreuse-colored foliage gives the Spring garden such a jolt of color contrasting with the purples, blues, and pinks of the usual flowers. You can just see the airy blue flowers of the Brunnera ‘Jack Frost’ behind, and a lone red tulip planted by Harvey the Chipmunk makes everything zing.
Euphorbia polychroma
In one of the shade gardens, the blue-green of the Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum) and green ferns contrast with the red-tinged Viburnum trilobum (American Cranberrybush Viburnum or High Bush Cranberry). The starry flowers of the underlying sweet woodruff (Galium odoratum) light up this scene.
Shade garden
Even the clematis wanted to get in on the action – isn’t she pretty? Now she has about 25 blooms – crazy Spring!
Clematis viticella 'Venosa Violaceae' maybe
