Barry Severn shared these close-up photos of spring flowers from where he gardens near Toronto, Canada. It’s always nice to look forward to spring as we move into the wintery time of year!
Pulmonaria (lungwort, Zones 4–9) is a great, tough, early-blooming perennial. Bumblebees love it, and it is a great source for food for them as they come out of their winter hibernation. This is a perennial for shade, and the early spring flowers are followed up by beautiful silver-patterned foliage throughout the summer.
Cornus mas (Zones 4–8) is sometimes called the cornelia cherry dogwood because it produces bright red, very tart, edible berries in the summer, but it is also one of the earliest blooming trees or shrubs, producing a cloud of tiny yellow flowers as early as March.
Chionodoxa (Zones 3–8) has the common name of glory of the snow for its very early blooming habits. Barry says that this beautiful bulb is so vigorous that it is a weed for him. May we all be blessed with weeds this beautiful!
A mourning cloak butterfly feeds on native pussy willow (Salix discolor, Zones 4–8) flowers. The caterpillars of this species also happily feed on the leaves of this willow.
Newly emerging rhubarb (Rheum × hybridum, Zones 3–8) leaves looking like a vegetable brain.
This tiny, early spring-blooming iris looks to be Iris reticulata ‘Pauline’ (Zones 5–9) or one of the hybrids in the Iris reticulata group. These tiny irises grow from bulbs, only reaching a few inches tall and blooming incredibly early, often right after snowdrops.
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Comments
Love the rhubarb shot. My grandmother was a strawberry rhubarb pie master. Definitely helping to focus on the inevitability of SPRING.
Re: my grandmother was a strawberry rhubarb pie master
Mine, too!
My aunt was the queen of strawberry rhubarb pie! Still my favorite pie :-)
Love these closeups! It's a shame that the cornelian cherry dogwood is so underused in landscapes. It's one of the most beautiful trees & the earliest to bloom. Just love it! Thanks for sharing!
Great pics of some of my fave spring bulbs.
I remember a huge rhubarb garden from early childhood, and happy to see how unusual it looks first coming up!
Interesting to learn from you about the mourning cloak butterfly, love that photo of it too!
Barry - I especially like your photos of the small and tiny flowers. You were so careful to have pleasing backgrounds. Thank you for sharing some of your garden!
Love the colors of that glory of the snow - beautiful!
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