What's Blooming In My Garden This Morning

I felt the need to grab my camera and go into my garden this morning to see what was blooming and to capture the moment.  Spring blossoms fade so quickly and then they are gone until next Spring.

I was really excited to see the Clemantis in bloom, even more beautiful this year.  Gardeners say that the third year is the miracle year when adding perennials to the garden - in my experience that is true....so I can't wait until next Spring, my third year after planting. 

"I notice that it is only when my mother is working in her flowers that she is radiant; almost to the point of being invisible - except as Creator:  hand and eye.  She is involved in work her Soul must have.  Ordering the Universe in the image of her personal conception of Beauty." - Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mother's Gardens, 1983  

I planted his Peony last year and this will be the first year for blossoms.  I am so anxious to see this one bloom in a deep cherry red.   Peonies remind me of elementary school when it was okay to bring your teachers flowers from the family garden.  I would select each blossom with care, wrap the stems in a wet paper towel and hold the blossoms in my hands on my lap as we bumped along the country roads on the way to school in the old yellow bus.  

The smile on my teacher's face as she brought the blossoms to her noise to inhale the signature scent of the Peony was my reward.  It made me so happy to see the blossoms on her desk in a make shift vase throughout the school day.  I only wish we could have had blossoms at our desks as well.  

"Flowers...have a mysterious and subtle influence upon the feelings, not unlike strains of music.  They relax the tenseness of the mind.  They dissolve its vigor."  - Henry Ward Belcher, American clergyman, (1813-1887)

Snowball Hydrangea in it's fifth year of growth standing at 9 feet in height.  I love the chartreuse blossoms that fade into creamy white before blowing away in the breeze like snow flakes.  
Scourge of the lawn and garden - the dandelion.  Aren't they exquisite in design?  Brilliant yellow blossoms, edible salad greens loaded with antioxidants and magical snow white lacy heads that burst into the air when a child blows on the snowy orb.   Magic.

Another dreadful plant the creeping buttercup that threads runners just beneath the soil sprouting its' progeny prolifically.  My Grandmother always used this plant as a ground cover for waste areas of her garden.  My sister in law, Laurie recently purchased an older home that she is renovating - it's beautiful by the way - and she has an area that she would like to put groundcover.  This may be the old fashioned plant for her!  

Pink Dogwood is so beautiful in the Spring.  I was so happy that we did not have the late freeze this year that stole the joy of blossoms from us last year.

"The sun shone for nearly a week on the secret garden.  The Secret Garden was what Mary called it when she was thinking of it.  She like the name, and she liked the feeling that when its beautiful old walls shut her in no one knew where she was.  It seemed almost like being shut out of the world in some fairy place." - Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden, 1911