Everything outdoors is filled in and green now! I came home with hundreds of pictures Sunday afternoon and struggled to narrow my selections down to 36, so I’m splitting them down to sharing a dozen a day for three days.
We were delighted to find a pair of house finches enjoying a late lunch at the feeders.
And then there were plenty of flowers, of course!
I noticed this well-defined fern shadow on the boardwalk (above) and then found the beam of sunlight on a Christmas fern (below) that was creating it.
The cinnamon ferns (below) have grown so tall since I photographed their fiddleheads on March 26th!
Blooming wild azaleas scattered around the botanical garden looked so pretty there, accenting all that new greenery.
to be continued …
Wild azalea! I’ve never heard of that nor seen it to my knowledge. Beautiful photo.
Thanks, Ally. Sometimes they’re hard to spot deep in the woods — I only discovered them when a friend pointed one out to me back in Connecticut.
Beautiful! Spring has truly sprung there. We’re still a little behind you. I think your little question mark flowers are bluets.
Thank you, Robin! I don’t think they are bluets, though, because they have five petals instead of four. Google id seems to say they are amsonia tomentosa or woolly bluestars, which aren’t native to this area.
The botanical garden posted a picture of the flower on Facebook and identified it as a sandhills bluestar. Mystery solved!
Lovely photos! I enjoyed the shadow of the fern on the wood. The very striking Crossvine is a new flower for me.
Thank you, Anna! It was magical finding that shadow and the crossvine was new to me, too. It’s not deer resistant so maybe that’s why it’s growing so well in the protected botanical garden.
I love the azaleas and those star-shaped flowers, whatever they might be. I find it interesting the different shapes flowers come in, don’t you? And what a find — that fern shadow! That’s keeping your eyes peeled for the surprises all around us!
I agree, the endless variety in size, shape, and color that different flowers possess is endlessly amazing. It was enchanting spotting the fern shadow, you just never know what might be found around the corner on any given day!
Ooh, so nice to see full-on spring. Glad you are out enjoying the fine weather!
It felt so good to get out there! And now we have the third frost warning this month for tomorrow morning.
Hope it doesn’t hurt the fruit blossoms!
Me, too! Looks like we’ll be putting the geranium in the shed overnight again.
There’s so much for the eyes to feast upon at the Botanical Garden Barbara, so with all that color sprouting everywhere – no wonder you took so many photos. I would do the very same thing.
I have never seen House Finches – the male is so vibrant and then just after the female, that beautiful Crossvine, Wild Columbine and finally the Wild Azalea, all with their similar colors, even complementing the male House Finch’s colors. I like how you captured the Christmas Fern’s shadow perfectly on the boardwalk.
I’m looking forward to the remaining two in the series of “Dozens”.
It was such a pleasant surprise to spot that shadow, so well defined. Especially since I rarely walk down that section of the boardwalk. It’s funny, I feel like I’ve seen the whole botanical garden many times over, and yet each time I go there is something new waiting for me to discover. Not so many birds this spring, though, I’ve noticed. We hear them and can identify them by song with the Merlin Bird ID app, but they remain elusive to our eyes. We keep hearing northern parulas, which would be a new lifer for me, but still haven’t seen one!!!
Perfect shadow for that fern Barbara! That is good you have new discoveries each time you visit. Do your local birds migrate or just stay there? You had some snowy weather this Winter – they may not want to hang around, even with a good food source, next Winter. I had to Google Northern Parula. I hope you find one – they are very colorful!
Thank you, Linda! I loved that fern shadow. I think some of the birds, like the cardinals, are here year round. But I’ve noticed more juncos here in the winter and understand that they go north to breed in Canada in the summer. I looked up parulas and they winter in central America and come here in the summer to breed. So I’ll keep an eye out for them.
I saw on a Facebook site that Thursday night was one of the busiest migration nights in Spring. So perhaps your botanical gardens will be seeing more species of bird soon.
I’ve been working my way through your posts since I returned home from Tennessee. I saw Third Dozen and continued so I decided to start from the beginning. I was interested to see your photo of crossvine – I saw some for the first time on my trip! That wild azalea is gorgeous. I REALLY wanted to visit a botanical garden while I was on my trip but the weather really wasn’t great.
I think that was the first time I noticed the crossvine, though it must have been there last year and I managed to miss it. The flowers are so striking. The wild azaleas are so pretty but they don’t last long enough! That’s too bad the weather didn’t cooperate with you on your trip, especially when you’re camping. I keep hearing about big storms in Tennessee but they seem to fizzle out before they get here.