We have a tiny little Magnolia tree we planted about 3-4 years ago and all it does is bloom like crazy about this time of year. It never seems to grow or put out many leaves but the blooms are very pretty. It’s not the traditional Magnolia tree with the big waxy leaves, I’m pretty sure it is a Magnolia sieboldii tree but it really hasn’t grown much since we planted it, and today it is the photo of the day.
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The photo of the day today comes from about 50 feet away from where I type this blog post. You can’t really tell from the shot but these little guys are about the size of my thumb, and while we don’t have a huge supply of Daffodils at our place we have a bunch of little Jonquils. Normally I wouldn’t take shots of flowers blooming in direct sunlight but it made for some great bokeh in the background.
It’s just the very beginning of Spring here in Auburn (we have had March snowstorms before, see Rare March Snowstorm in Auburn 2009 and also Samford Hall and Auburn University in the Snow), one of the most beautiful times of the year. Every year I look forward to these little guys coming up in the garden because no matter what cold temps are currently outside I know warmer weather is coming.
I know sometimes in this part of the country we look over the landscape, see nothing but green Pine trees that grow like weeds and think there are no other colors to be seen besides brown and green. To me, seeing other colors is often a time issue. Taking time to slow down enough to see the nuances that occur all around us. It’s easy to see in the heart of Springtime, but even winter has some color around here.
Coming up next will be the beautiful purples of Wisteria and the Dogwood Trees.
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The flowers around town tell us it is Springtime but for the last week or so it has been nothing but cold and rainy so last night before it got dark I did another photo walk-through in the back yard (see part 1 Backyard Dose of Spring Flowers // Photos). There were plenty of wild flowers blooming and the Dogwood trees are still in full bloom down here. I always think that if a photo needs an explanation it isn’t very good, but… the one with the sun in the middle was a spider web wrapped around a branch and the last photo is the very center of a Dogwood bloom.
If you walk around outside long enough you can always find something of beauty, even if it is actually in the eye of the beholder.
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The backyard is a great place to take some photos of Spring in action. I took these photos last night after I got home from work and it shows the color of Spring can be found just about everywhere right now. The fist shot is the bud stem of the Wisteria plant which is almost as prevalent around here as Kudzu. You can click on the larger size of the Wisteria and see it is covered in yellow pollen from the pine trees which is covering just about everything right now.
The next is a bloom from a Magnolia tree (a southern Magnolia I believe, not the traditional large thick green leaved trees), and the last is a violet (weed). The violets are everywhere this year but they are so small if you don’t look closely you might miss them altogether. They are about the size of a pencil eraser at most, and are usually considered to be weeds.
The Magnolia tree is interesting… one of the early bloomers of Spring, it produces these large white flowers before it grows any leaves at all and doesn’t bloom again until next February. Right now it has exploded in bloom and the very center of the flower has a beautiful yellow and red center (shown below) which is also smaller than the size of a pencil eraser (very small).
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I didn’t really think about it like that until this year, but life seems so fragile sometimes, even if we live out the average life span for this country, we will only see, or recognize, this time comes around 50-80 times on average, if we are lucky. I think the first 5-10 Spring season changes don’t really count since we can’t comprehend what we are looking at, but I have already experienced 37 Spring’s in my life, so as the flowers bloom and leaves start to fill the trees again, I am keenly aware I have about 35 down and 35 to go, so to speak.
I am amazed at God’s symphony that we call Spring. Almost so slowly we don’t notice, the buds on the trees come out and things go from brown to green in a blink of an eye. Last week in what I hope is winter’s last hurrah, I shot some photos of the Dogwood blooms on a tree in front of our house. It survived the snow, the ice, the cold, to bring us the images below. Of course down here in the south, no Spring is complete without the bloom of the yellow pollen from the pines. I took the other shot a few days ago just before all the pods started to release gallons of yellow pollen that now covers every square inch of everything.
These photos are of the Dogwood in bloom just outside out living room window. Just the smallest blooms, waiting for a warmer day to arrive. The closeup of the pine tree below covers us in a bath of yellow pollen for several weeks, but it is still a beautiful sight when you know warmer weather is on its way.
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We had a nice weekend of hot weather, but it finally started raining. We have been in such a drought that any rain at all is a welcome site. After the rain cleared out our unknown bulb started blooming, rapidly. We were given this and told it was a “4th of July plant” and it started looking very star trek like before the blooms opened.
Cahaba or Shoals Spider Lily
Once the blooms opened we could see that it was indeed what is known locally in Alabama as the Cahaba Lily. Hymenocallis coronaria (Cahaba Lily or Shoals spider-lily), is known within the state of Alabama as the Cahaba Lily (outside the state it is known as the Shoals spider-lily) because it grows on the banks of the Cahaba River. It is actually an Amaryllis bulb and should multiple quite nicely in our garden.
You can see from the image that it has several more blooms to go, hopefully we can get some more rain over the next few days and it should be very happy. What is funny about this Lily is we actually got it from Texas. My father-in-law ordered it online, probably at Jackson & Perkins, but we took it from the box in Texas, back over here to Alabama and planted it in the garden back in March/April.
The image was taken very late in the afternoon. I love photography of flowers, but the conditions have to be just right to be able to get a sharp image, with a good background, and in good light. Especially when photographing a white flower, special care should be taken not to overexpose the white part of the flower.
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This week has gone by in a blink. Yesterday we planted 5 oak trees before breakfast trying to avoid the mid-morning heat and by about 10am it was to hot to do anything outside. I looked over at our rose bush today, a red Double Knockout Rose (or aka a Double Knock Out Rose) and it was in full bloom.
Thinking again like I was yesterday, I went out to try and capture a photo of the bloom before it got way to hot outside. As my luck would have it, the wind was blowing like crazy.
The Red Double Knock Out Rose Bloom
Normally this time of year they are covered in red double bloom flowers but this one was not planted to long ago and it sat in the hot dry drought we have going on for several weeks looking rather pitiful. Two days ago Deb put some rose food around its base, and now, blooms everywhere.
This variety of rose is a sister to the Knockout Rose which can get to be a very large, tree, shrub sized rose bush. The Double Knockout is quite a bit smaller and well suited to our very young garden. I took this shot this morning, about 7am, before it got really hot outside.
The wind gave me fits as it decided this morning was the morning to blow, continuously, but I was still able to enjoy a small amount of time to smell the roses this morning before I went to work.
