Yay, spring!

Somehow, flowers seem appropriate for Easter week. And down South, in our banana belt, they're bursting out all over.

I had just remarked, to Laurie, that the magnolias would be open soon, when I saw this tree, in full flower.

I love the "fur" bud jacket, so appropriate for the still-chilly nights, now unzipped to release the full flower into the sunshine.

The owner of this garden invited us in to get a better look at her tree. And she showed me her flowering prunus, in the shade underneath. "It's a pity," she said, "that the magnolia hogs all the glory."
Prunus incisa, the Fuji cherry.

Red flowering currant. An early spring bloomer. Forsythia provides the background colour.

More primulas

These were hiding in deep grass by the side of the trail to the beach. I don't know what they are.

Masses of white clematis climb the fences.

I spent the afternoon today in the garden, setting out plants from the nurseries, already in flower. Of the perennials that spent the winter here in North Delta, only the hellebores, the pulmonaria and one primula are blooming, but the Dutchman's breeches are loaded with buds, and I saw the hint of a pink bud on the native bleeding heart. Many of the others are barely poking tentative noses out of the soil. "Is is spring yet?" they say. Yep. There was even a giant bumblebee, in a vivid black and yellow fur coat, out prospecting in the sunshine. It's spring.

And it's also April Fools' Day. Keep your wits about you!