Dramatic Skies and Star Magnolias

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: 
when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.

Charles Dickens



These late days of March are supposed to be the lamb. But sometimes, when the sky rages, they can be the lion.

Welcome cleansing gusts. So much can change with the wind. 

Today started drab and drizzly. But then the wind picked up. The sky cleared. And suddenly, there was blue in the sky.



Remnants of clouds, fluffy and white, brought out the Star Magnolia, Magnolia stellata, just now beginning to bloom.

They are welcome harbingers of all the spring shrubs that will soon bear flowers.



Such pristene white. Such perfect stars. All the more welcome on this bracing, gusty day.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

To Keep Us All Connected

Image
These early days of Spring, so much can change in a day. Hellebores in the Birch Tree Allee To keep us all connected, this temporary blog will be a place where we can share pictures and stories from the garden we all love, but that many of us cannot be in for the time being. Horticulture staff will add pictures and updates as we can. And perhaps as time goes on we can add pictures of what people may be working on in their gardens at home. Forsythia and Yoshino Cherry, just starting to bloom on a cloudy spring day Looking forward to the day when we can all be in the garden again, soon! Freshly pruned Mackintosh apple trees in the Great Garden.
Read more

English Garden Update

Image
Tree Peonies in bloom, May 2019 What's going on in the English garden so far this spring? Plants in the English Garden are slowly emerging and just a couple early bloomers such as the Rock Cress and some early yellow primrose are showing color. Today the Peony hoops have been installed to hold up the gorgeous blooms we should be seeing in about a month. The Greenhouse crew was busy growing lots of replacement perennials for the English Garden in the past several months. Some of the plants were started as seed or divisions taken in the fall and others were bought in as bare root. Because our Greenhouse space in so limited and annual production is in full swing, this meant we had to get the perennials out quickly to their new home in the English Garden. To do this so early, we had to slowly transfer perennials grown in a 75 degree greenhouse, to a make shift cold frame, and then lastly outside to get them acclimated to our cold nights. Thousands of plants in one o...
Read more

Snow on the Daffodils

Image
Sunrise over the Manor House, April 10, 2020. Yoshino Cherries in bloom with a pink cloud background, and in the foreground, fittingly, an heirloom variety of apple tree known as "Snow." There is an old adage, "It always snows on the daffodils." Weeping cherry tree and snowy daffodils near the Gardener's Cottage. I am not sure the origin of this wisdom, but snow on the daffodils is something most springs in Ohio you can count on. For one thing, daffodils have a very long blooming season: the earliest arriving sometimes in February, with a continued progression of bloom more or less through April. And most Aprils, we can count on one or more big snows. Manor House viewed through the Rose Garden, April 10, 2020. Including Good Friday, April 10, 2020. We awoke to several inches of light fluffy snow. And at sunrise, pink clouds over the Manor House cleared way for briefly blue skies. Rising sun illuminates the Birch Allee, April 10, 2020...
Read more