Yellow and pink seem to be the colours of shrub and tree flowers in the first half of May. For instance, this boulevard tree is a Yellow Bird magnolia (Magnolia × brooklynensis ‘Yellow Bird’). Yes, the × means it is a cultivated variety (a cultivar) and brooklynensis means it was created by the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. This tree is on Comox Street in Vancouver’s West End.
Nearby is a honeysuckle vine I’ve been watching. In early May, the unopened flowers were
It is now the end of April and most of the late-blooming ornamental cherry trees have finished their display for the year. Even so, let us watch them bow.
The City of Vancouver has planted 9,900 trees with the cultivar name of ‘Kanzan’, Prunus Sato-zakura Group ‘Kanzan’; it is also called ‘Kwanzan’. This is the greatest number of all ornamental cherry trees planted here. There is bound to be one near you, if you live in Vancouver. And
Using a burner phone, I was disappointed with my photos of plants in France. Only these are worthwhile:
An avenue of London plane trees (Platanus x hispanica) leads to the Palace of Versailles.
A tree in the Cercis genus gets attention through its bright pink flowers and lime green leaves.
Many male catkins hang below immature,still-yellow leaves on a pedunculate or European oak, Quercus robur, in the Tuileries Garden. Behind is a stand of horsechestnut trees,
A hedge is “fence or boundary formed by a dense row of shrubs or low trees.“ So says the Merriam-Webster dictionary.
I grew up in South Wales where every little row house, semi-detached house, single dwelling house, or even castle sported its own fence, often of bricks, railings, or plants.
The hedge idea continues. If it is to be a plant, how does one choose? Should the plant be evergreen or deciduous?
Now that we are in April, all the deciduous hedges are sporting
At the beginning of April I saw for the first time this yellow-flowering shrub from Japan: Japanese kerria, also known as Japanese rose. Another member of Rosaceae, the rose family, this shrub’s scientific name is Kerria japonica.
What a beauty!
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)
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)