Even in the dead of winter there are flowers ...

... here in BC. We photographed this orange witch hazel the last week in December, at the New Westminster Quay.

Bare twigs, lichen, dead leaves ... and the newest petals of the spring crop of blooms. So new, as yet unfurled, but so brightly coloured.

I saw a brilliant yellow witch hazel in full flower a few Januarys ago in Deer Lake Park, just below the art gallery. Such a cheerful sight on a winter's day, with the silvery, icy lake below you, grey clouds overhead and your wet feet freezing on the slushy path! Worth the pain. (Note to self: next time, wear boots.)

Of course, we always find pansies along the promenade from late winter until late spring, great masses of them, mostly in yellows and mauve at this time of year. And a stray hardy rose or two as well as the most persistent of the fuschias. The viburnum is just starting to bud; next time we walk there, it will be in full bloom.

Pansies hiding in a nice, warm(er) micro-climate. And doing better than the ones out in open beds.

And there are always the regrettable solutions to problems better left alone. Here along the Quay, someone with a lack of imagination always sets in truckloads of "ornamental" kale, green, white, purple and pink, in any space they find empty. In straight rows, sometimes on the diagonal, sometimes alternating colours regularly, like a checker board. Pretty at first sight, maybe interesting at the second. Not at the hundred and seventy-eighth.

But then again, maybe if we have a bad economic stretch, we can eat them.


Photo of kale from here.