Leaves, small and huge

 A bit of garden greenery today.

Stubborn fern. Common lady fern, Athyrium filix-femina.

This little fern grows in a crack in cement steps. It gets walked on, yanked by a garden hose coming and going, sometimes cut down altogether when it begins to look ragged. It always comes back.

Wet hostas catching a bit of sunlight.

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Hoy, unas hojas verdes, nada más.

#1: Un helecho persistente. Crece en una grieta entre escalones de cemento, donde aguanta los pisotones, los jalones que le da la manguera, subiendo a regar el césped, y donde de vez en cuando lo corto completamente porque ya está como medio destruido. Y siempre regresa.

#2: Unas hostas con agua y un poco de sol.

Fern

In snow.

Brown's Bay Road

Unfolding

This ...

Fern, unfolding

... reminded me of this ...

Anemone, unfolding.

Sometimes form follows function. Sometimes, it doesn't.

In a wet garden

In our gardens, it's spring. Leaves are unfolding, flowers budding or even blooming. Laurie's three-year-old leeks, that he planted hoping for leek soup, but that never grew more than a few inches, have sprouted again, for the third year. (They won't end up in soup this year, either.)

And Laurie is lying on his back in the hospital, staring at the grey sky through his window. So I took my little pocket camera and went out to take a few photos that I could then show him, back at the hospital. The minute I went outside, it started to rain. I kept going and took a few fast photos anyway.

Hellebores. Laurie's are whitish. Mine, back in the shade, are barely sprouting now. They will be deep purple.

One of Laurie's collection of ferns. With the leaves neither of us had the energy to remove in December.

Perennial bleeding hearts, just sprouting. Mine, in deep shade, are white; his will be a strong pink.

Running back to shelter across the lawn, I had to stop to look at this droplet on a branch of the linden tree. The building behind me and a tall evergreen are reflected here, upside-down.

I had to leave the camera open on the seat beside me all the way to the hospital, to let it dry out. And Laurie smiled at his little row of leeks.

Wallpapered rock

On the Powell River peninsula, we stopped at a viewpoint over Thunder Bay.

A peaceful scene; water and hills and sky.

The tidal currents make patterns in the water.

Ahhhh! Breathe deep, smell the evergreens, the salt water. Listen to the silence. Feel ten years younger ...

Turning back to the car, refreshed, we noticed the rock face on the opposite side of the highway. It was covered with round "flower" patterns, like a pale version of 1970s wallpaper.

Circles of crustose lichen.

Each one was different; some were grey, others pale orangey brown; some had brown fruiting bodies (apothecia), some sported pale little cups. Click on the photos to see the structures and colours in better detail.

These were also at the viewpoint, and insist on being included here:

Fern and foxglove.

Pearly everlasting. One of my favourite flowers.

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