It’s almost April, the most prolific month for trees that grow perfect blossoms–“perfect” means they have both male and female reproductive organs in one flower.
The Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival has begun with the Big Picnic and the Blossoms After Dark events. Much more to come. Here to enjoy the excitement are
(1) Prunus ‘Snow Goose’; there is a row of them edging Ceperley Meadow, west of the Pitch & Putt in Stanley Park;
(2) Prunus ‘Umineko’
It is official: it’s spring. And yes, it has been raining buckets.
As I go by a mound of fragrant daphne, Daphne odora, I have to go back and smell again. A heady fragrance that is so pleasurable beside an entrance, stairs, a path. The dark-green evergreen leaves are simple, pointed at both ends, but the four-petalled flowers range from pale to deep pink, and they smell wonderful.
In our lane, the magnolias are blooming again: star magnolia (Magnolia stellata) and saucer magnolia
It is official: it’s spring. And yes, it has been raining buckets.
As I go by a mound of fragrant daphne, Daphne odora, I have to go back and smell again. A heady fragrance that is so pleasurable beside an entrance, stairs, a path. The dark-green evergreen leaves are simple, pointed at both ends, but the four-petalled flowers range from pale to deep pink, and they smell wonderful.
In our lane, the magnolias are blooming again: star magnolia (Magnolia stellata) and saucer magnolia
Imagine coming around the corner and seeing this magnolia tree in full bloom! In early March! It is a Magnolia ‘Caerhays Belle’, apparently a cross between M. sargentiana var. robusta and M. sprenger ‘Diva’. Oregon State University’s Landscape Plants says the cross was developed at Caerhays Castle, Cornwall, England, and introduced into North America in 1972. This particular tree was planted in 1999.
So I went looking. Caerhays Estate has a lovely website flush with photographs
Winter is a surprisingly good time to identify some deciduous trees. Yes, they are no longer carrying some of their best features for identification–leaves and flowers–yet many of them are bearing fruit, their bark is often recognizable, and even their roots can tell a tale.
And there are other ways.
From a distance, this street tree looks like a tall stick below and a red cloud above.
Getting closer, the redness turns out to be red berries growing separately; I would say alternately
The promise of spring is everywhere: breezy warmth, leafy buds, blue skies, and sweet birdsong. Already, white snowdrops, purple crocuses, and budding daffodils are emerging from dark, rich, warming soil.
Red berries are everywhere, attractive to look at and most of them edible to birds. I am always on the lookout for happy plants of heavenly bamboo, Nandina domestica. It is an airy shrub with compound leaves, some of them bi-pinnate and some tri-pinnate (pinnate meaning the leaflets
This banana palm plant growing in Vancouver was cut down at the end of November 2025 before our winter got going, thereby preventing winter rot, caused by a fungal disease in the soil. Had the banana leaves fallen with the cold weather, they would have created the perfect warm and moist environment for the fungus to get established.
The four pseudostems show how the banana leaves wrap around the central core and then around each other. Take a look at ScienceDirect’s article about how much more