One of my favorite bushes to bloom in the Spring is the Weigela bush. We used to have one outside our window growing up in Portville, so it evokes a lot of fond memories. There are so many blooms that the branches just droop with color, it is a beautiful sight. I think here in Texas I was lucky to find a good location as the hot sun in the summer tends to burn the leaves. Mine is under some oak trees that provides afternoon protection but allows it to have the morning and early afternoon sun.
I rescued some tulips from a gardening job last Fall, put them in a container in the garage, and promptly forgot about them. That is, until a few weeks ago when I was rummaging around out there. The bulbs had little green stems poking up so some were quickly stuck into bulb vases in hopes of eliciting some early flowers and others were planted into pots. The tulip is ‘Toronto’ – its color is ethereal, and welcoming in the early spring.
We are in full bloom here. The red buds and Bradford Pears are just gorgeous. I went to the Ft. Worth Botanical Gardens yesterday, where I volunteer, and just enjoyed the weeding and gabbing with the other ladies that help out. It is good for the soul. I am amazed at the varieties of bulbs that are coming up there, Texas is a tough place for bulbs with its extreme climate. It is a good reason to help out there, they know what grows in this climate. For those of you up north you will be happy to know we are back down in the 40’s and rainy for the rest of the week. The rain is much needed here though as we have been in drought conditions for a while.
There is something pretty magical about the light in early spring, late fall and winter. Call me crazy, but even though it’s cold and there isn’t a whole lot (if anything!) in bloom, these are my favorite times to be outside and just breathe. This is a close-up of a freebie in late-afternoon spring – one of those ten free trees from the Arbor Day Foundation that I got when I was starving for anything green at our last house. Since the yard was a postage stamp and we were renting, most of the ten ended up at friend’s houses or simply as “puppy-dog-mulch” from our two canine chipper-shredders. This one survived its infancy in a pot, and while we now have a larger lot, it is still urban sized and the tree is probably too big for it. Still, I love the bark and its shape and the way its leaves dance in the wind. I believe it’s a river birch (though with free things, who knows for sure – horticulturists out there??), fairly apt for a house in a city of three rivers.
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