Tag Archives: daffodils

Perpetual Astonishment

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Every spring is the only spring – a perpetual astonishment. ~Ellis Peters

A week of sun and rain has changed everything. The garden grows greener by the minute, more flowers are blooming each day. The small islands of early flowers and foliage are growing larger and starting to connect throughout the garden. It looks and smells like spring. The wild cherries and amelanchier are blooming throughout the woods with clumps of summer snowflakes blooming beneath. (Click on any photo in these mosaics to see a full size image)

Amelanchier
Mid-April garden
Summer snowflake (Leucojum aestivum)’Gravetye Giant’

The later daffodils are beginning to bloom and have escaped being felled by sub-zero temperatures.

Daffodils in Grape & Lemonade bed
Daffodil ‘Thalia’
Daffodil ‘Sentinel’
Daffodil ‘Geranium’
Daffodil ‘Bella Coola’
Daffodil ‘La Traviata’

The tulips are coming into bloom, along with some early perennials.

Tulip ‘Marianne’
Tulip ‘Shirley’
Tulip ‘Orange Princess’
Pulmonaria longifolia ‘Bertram Anderson’
Tulip ‘Apricot Beauty’
Brunnera macrophylla ‘Alexander’s Great’
Groundcovers
Spring star flower (Iphieon uniflorum)

Spring seems to have arrived in earnest, perpetually astonishing in its loveliness.

This post is a part of Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day, a monthly event sponsored by May Dreams Gardens. You will find links to over fifty beautiful gardens blooming in April – have fun exploring!

All photos ©2017 Lynn Emberg Purse, All Rights Reserved.

The call of spring seems to be louder, sweeter, more siren-like, than ever before. The longing to get closer to nature, fills the heart. ~M.F. Canfield

The Flower Born Today

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The flower that you hold in your hands was born today and already it is as old as you are. ~Antonio Porchia

Tulip 'Apricot Beauty'Each day as I walk through my garden, I see the culmination of work that I did last year, or ten years ago. I also see what is to come, tomorrow, next week, next month. Gardeners are time travelers of a sort. This spring, I am reaping the rewards of having the paths redone last summer. To tread on firm gravel instead of sinking up to my ankles in muck as I moved through the garden in April brought to mind the last year’s path project and my hopes for the garden this season. Every tulip and daffodil that bloomed this spring arose from the bending and digging last October when I planted a thousand bulbs – a vision of floral extravaganza played through in my mind as the autumn leaves fell golden to the ground. Now as I trim the fading blooms from each spring flower, I notice the burgeoning growth of  roses and daylilies to come, and anticipate the floral fireworks of June and July in my imagination.

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I stand in a river of time as the garden streams around me, a constant eddy and flow of events in the moment, yet each dependent on the imagination of the past and the hope of the future. This week, unseasonable heat brought the spring bulb season to a sudden close but also brought on the purple lollipops of Allium aflutanense and the brilliantly colored cloaks of Azaleas and Rhododendrons. Nature never stands still and the ever changing garden carries the gardener with it. Here are a few scenes from the passing spring and the approaching summer; click on any photo to enter the slide viewer. Enjoy! (All photos ©2015 Lynn Emberg Purse, All Rights Reserved).

Spring bloom on the hill
Tulip ‘Blushing Beauty’
Bleeding heart and tulips
Orange tulip, pink daffodil

There is no “End” to be written, neither can you, like an architect, engrave in stone the day the garden was finished. A painter can frame his picture, a composer can notate his coda, but a garden is always on the move. ~Mirabel Osler

Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping, into the future. ~Steve Miller (Fly Like An Eagle)

At Last

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At last, the skies above are blue. ~Mack Gordon

At last, spring has arrived.

At last, flowers are blooming.

At last, the dawn chorus of birds is deafening.

Daffodil Verdant Meadows
Rose striped hellebore
Daffodil Rijnveld’s Early Sensation
Half moon in April
Golden arborvitae
Dark hellebore
Cornus mas branch
Chionodoxa
Anemone blanda White Splendour

At last, I am in the garden.

Although this song has been playing in my head for the past few days, no one can sing it quite like Etta James.  Enjoy.

Signs of Spring

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I glanced out the window at the signs of spring. The sky was almost blue, the trees were almost budding, the sun was almost bright. ~ Millard Kaufman

The onslaught of the freeze thaw cycle is upon us. We have shifted from bitter cold and heavy snow to balmy sunny days twice in the past four weeks. This morning, in the midst of a short lived thaw, I discovered snow drops blooming and hellebores in full bud.  Signs of spring are everywhere, from the green snouts of daffodils poking into the world to buds swelling on the cherry tree. A promise of what is to come.

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