Saturday, April 16, 2011

April Foliage

The day started out gray and dreary. Then the rains came. Then the wind and storms. I've been inside being lazy all day. It has been so dark I've had to have a light on the whole time.

It is Spring; I want to be outside! I want to look at the trees putting forth their new leaves. I want to watch plants emerging from last year's debris. And I want to show them off for today's Foliage Follow-Up.

I'll just have to content myself with looking at pictures from earlier in the week, like these:

Soft leaves are beginning to show themselves on the weeping Japanese maple.

I didn't have my camera with me when I first spotted these. They looked just like asparagus to me. By the time I remembered to take a picture, they had started to leaf out some. You don't get the whole asparagus effect, here, but maybe you can imagine:

They are really not asparagus, but balloon flowers.

Yesterday I showed off the Pasque Flower. Nearby is this similar plant, the native Anemone patens. I've had it for several years now. I do love the foliage, but it has yet to flower.

I also showed my white bleeding heart yesterday. In the background was this:

Mertensia virginica, Virginia bluebells. If these were going to flower they would be doing so now. But this plant has had a very hard life, and I'm just really happy to see it return at all. We can wait another year for flowers.

And here's something I was not at all happy to see. Several years ago I had a horrible tree-of-heaven taken down. Why is it so horrible? It grows super-fast and procreates like crazy. The entire root of the young plants must be removed, or the trees just grow back. Like this one:
Because it is buried in my out-of-control rosemary, the original seedling got a really good toehold in that spot before I pulled it out. I go most of it, but apparently not all, because it is back again this year. And once again it's had a chance to spread its roots before I noticed it in there. I'm hoping today's rains make the ground nice and soft so I can pull it out tomorrow.

Go see Pam at Digging for links to some more great foliage!

1 comment:

  1. I love the rosy new leaves of Japanese maple. It's like fall and spring all rolled into one.

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