Spring Has Arrived!

A touch of yellow with hot salmon... the tulips are blooming.

"How wonderful yellow is. It stands for the sun." ~ Vincent Van Gogh

Spring has arrived, at least for the time being. The past few days temperatures have been in the high 60's and low 70's and Palm Sunday was glorious with only minimal wind, lots of sun and small fluffy white clouds scampering by on occasion. A perfect day to use my pass to the Norfolk Botanical Gardens. Others thought so too! This time I took a young friend, Jenny and we walked and walked...and enjoyed all the beautiful flowers. The camellias are past the peak of their blooming season, but still beautiful... especially the candy striped varieties. Only the late blooming daffodil species are left but the tulips are coming into their own. Red, yellow, purple, pink and every conceivable permutation of mixed colors, including one that was a very different... hot cotton candy pink and pure white stripe. The dogwood are blooming as are the white redbud, common redbud, crab apple, chinese cherry and ornamental plumb. We were walking along the path through the tidewater plants nature garden and looked back across to open field to see a line of pinks, whites, purples all wonderfully mixed together... Too bad I am not an artist with canvas and paints. I would have set up shop right there.

Black and yellow swallowtail butterflies were seeking out nectar.. this is the earliest I have seen them here. Mom and Pop eagle were perched high in the trees, keeping a close eye on those three new chicks. I did notice that the usual crop of squirrels and birds were not prominent.. but I expect this may be due to the nesting eagles. However, the robins were abundant.. on the opposite side of the garden from the eagles, of course.

The roses are growing.. not yet blooming but by the end of May and June they will be in full force. Jenny is getting married, in Indiana, but she loves the garden. She thought the expense to rent the garden would be too much.. but it turns out to be less expensive than all the individual rentals in Indiana. And no need for flowers... oh, my.. this rose garden is perfectly set up for a fabulous wedding. We saw scattered rose petals on the ground in a linear pattern... yes, a wedding was held here on Saturday for sure...

It was a great day, and for just a hint at the beauty that surrounded us... I offer this touch of tulip... and its touch of yellow for Mellow Yellow Monday.

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