SPRING FLOWERS

This has been a damp spring. The flora are enjoying their long, tall drink.  Here is a small sampling of what is readily visible up our road this week:

Our second magnolia tree is blooming.  I have no details about this tree except it was a much appreciated gift from colleagues when I left the school where I had worked for several years.  

It has gorgeous, fairly large, yellow flowers that shyly bloom after the more flamboyant magnolia has finished showing off. 

We have a couple of these shrubs in the yard. Both were purchased at end-of-season sales. The label has long since disappeared, and because I am generally haphazard with garden records, I have no idea what it is.  I love the small, pink blossoms, and the purple leaves.  
It might well be a sand cherry, but who's to say. At the end of the day, it's all about giving beauty and pleasure.

A few years ago, Nigel stuck a stick in the ground to hold some string at the edge of one of the vegetable gardens. That stick decided to grow. To our delight, it is now a small apple tree, with those beautiful flowers on display at this time of year. 

One of my favourite spring-time sights is the carpet of blue forget-me-nots sprinkled with bright yellow dandelions found along the road verge.  This is such a cheerful colour combination that a viewer can only smile with pleasure.

Of course, dandelions are not always welcome spring flowers, because they seem to take over the more usual, ornamental gardens. However, apparently they help nourish bees when there is little else available for them. If you like the bitter taste of the leaves, dandelions help nourish us as well. 

And finally one of the iconic spring flowers in the Maritimes - lilac shrubs make a beautiful display with their mauve flowers complementing the green foliage.

The white lilacs are pretty, but somehow not the visible flower that we see on the mauve variety.

Very suddenly, the soft, gentle splashes of nature's palette will disappear as spring turns into summer. The road will be green, and the colours will be concentrated in the few garden beds in the yards. It will be beautiful, but in a green monochrome, restful for the eyes, and requiring long, lazy days to enjoy the subtle variations in the landscape.  That's next season.