Dogwood Not Quite in Bloom

Even not quite in bloom, our native dogwood really is a beauty, no?

Yellow Magnolias And Tulips (and culture)

If you pass a Yellow Magnolia this spring or even tulips (more likely if not gauranteed), will you take a second to think, as I have, about the fact that what you see is a product of both nature and man, with a history so long you could get lost in it for some time. The Magnolia alone could take you on a trip back to the time of the dinosaurs or just back some decades to the  Brooklyn of the 1950s when a yellow magnolia was first bred. Who knew in that same decade in the long history of the tulip and man, a tulip festival in Canada also began?

Ask yourself how far apart culture has always been from cultivation. The words themselves have common roots.

The Long Way Home

I have been taking the long way home this week in search of spring's blooms. And that has made all the difference. 

The cherry blossoms, magnolias and muscari aren't going to last forever, so right now is the time to catch the show this year.

New Leaves

I couldn't manage to get a good picture of this Japanese Summersweet's newest leaves unfolding, but I did snap a picture of its shadow. You can see what's left of last year's flower clusters still hanging on, dangling down while the new leaves emerge.

And at least one Weeping Katsura I love is among the earliest of trees to leaf out in spring. It's already a pale shade of green.

A Sweetsmelling Small Daffodil and Other Things Yellow

At Hofstra's Sensory Garden I fell in love with these wee multi-flowering daffodils. Then I took a whiff to see if they really were fragrant and man were they ever.

A Winter Hazel was in full bloom with some yellow tulips not far behind.