I found these two examples of flowering cherry trees when I was in the Washington Park Arboretum in Seattle last month. I loved that I could frame the picture so that the branch of darker cherry blossom puffs frame the more delicate pale pink cherry branches. Don't you think its pretty?
Time marches on, these blooms have faded in Seattle, but miraculously I am experiencing my third Spring this year. When I arrived in Seattle in early April, I was thrilled to see a magnolia tree in full bloom outside of our hotel. I remember being so happy about this sign of Spring that I texted a picture of the tree to show my mom.
When I returned home to southeastern Michigan in early May, I hadn't missed a thing! The flowering crabs on the side of our house were just leafing out. The dogwood tree was still dormant and the Bradford Pears were just about to bloom. My roses in the rose garden were alive (I could see small wisps of leaves at the base of each plant), but I'd lost the bulk of each cane to the cold winter temperatures. I've given them a lot of care over the past 2 weeks (pruning, Rose Tone fertilizer, Neptune's Harvest fish emulsion and a coating of bug spray) and I have high hopes for a healthy blooms by late June.
Now I am up north and everything is just starting to bloom here! How can I be so lucky? The lilacs are just coming out, the forsythia makes vibrant swaths of yellow here and they and I saw the river lined with Marsh Marigolds today! I have been able to experience a "second Spring" by traveling north to the cottage, but I never dreamed I'd be able to start with the tulip festival in Washington on April 12 and still watch bulbs develop by the cottage in Michigan on May 30. That is a lot of Spring and I enjoyed every minute of it.
I just love my three flowering crabapples! For a few weeks each year, they make a perfect haze of pink outside our windows - just like I wanted.Our house was part of a new construction neighborhood. So on top of everything else we had to decide, we needed to make a full landscape plan too - sod, trees, bushes.We hired a landscape company to coordinate and plant everything, but instead of having them draw up plans, I did it myself. Who better to decide which trees I wanted and where they should go, right?As the "planting" date drew closer, I called the landscaper to coordinate the best day/time for us to go pick out the trees. One morning (bright and early) he picked me up in his truck and we rode out to the wholesale tree farm. I couldn't wait to choose just the right flowering crabs, dogwood and lilacs. As we chatted on the long ride out there, I asked him what it was like to shop for trees with people. Did they always know what they wanted? Was is overwhelming? Did he like this part of the job?He looked at me and said, "Honestly, Anne, you are the first person who has ever wanted to come." Ha! Well, I thanked him for letting me come along (realizing I was suddenly far outside the landscaping "norm") and thought the whole process was fantastic just the same. If I were landscaping again, I wouldn't change a thing. I mean, look at my trees! I picked them out myself.
