Look around you: Winter is over;
The winter rains are over, gone!
Spring flowers are in blossom all over.
The whole world’s a choir – and singing!
Spring warblers are filling the forest
With sweet arpeggios.
Lilacs are exuberantly purple and perfumed,
And cherry trees fragrant with blossoms.
Song of Songs 2: 11 – 13
It is amazing how much greener everything became, practically overnight! The plants were very small and fragile, and in just a few days, they are almost up to my knee! I especially notice the hostas, that were just spears, poking out of the ground, not even particularly green, that are now unfurling large green leaves.
The forsythia bush was out in all it’s beautiful yellow flowers, brightening the garden. Then the flowers were mixed with leaves for a display of vivid green and yellow in a chaos of colours.
One of my favourite flowers is the daffodil. I think that’s because when I had to go for military training when I was in university they would be just coming out. Then I flew to Victoria, where they were finished. For several years I would miss them. I love all the different varieties!
A couple of weeks ago the countryside was mostly brown, with the trees sending up bare fingers of twigs to reach for the sky. Then there was a faint green haze that appeared around them. Now they have all their leaves and are out in varied colours of green. The early maple leaves showed a ruby red colour that we are not going to see again until fall, but have now deepened to through a dark red into a dark green.
My lawn had beautiful violets everywhere, interspersed with very small white daisy-like flowers. Then the snowdrops that had migrated out of the garden started to come out to mix in with the violets. I lifted my lawn mower as much as possible to let them bloom. I hate to cut down the flowers!
There is a large lilac bush at the back of my yard with very deep purple flowers. It is just covered! I can smell them from my back step. There are also small purple hyacinth blooming around the foot of my maple tree. I don’t have full sized hyacinths, but I can see them when I walk about town.
I don’t know where there are any cherry trees around here, but if you’ve been going south out of town there are absolutely gorgeous pink crab apple trees going up the hill. They are beautiful!
Spring is amazing! In just a few short weeks we go from nothing to a riot of colour and perfume that is a blessing to the birds and insects as well as helping to uplift and ease our souls.