Spring Fever

Kirk and I have both caught the spring fever brought on by the delicious warmth of the sun and intermittent days of thundering showers.  We have been marveling at and documenting the daily transformation of our surroundings which spring has wrought.  Trees and shrubs are coming alive with new green buds and some are bursting with flowers, pink, yellow, and white.  Like everyone else, we have been patronizing the local hardware store almost every weekend; gardening projects seem to be on everyone's mind. 

Fern Fronds

Fern unfurled

For our first spring season in Bloomington, I plan to turn the raised-bed area in our backyard into an herb and butterfly garden.  I have been pouring over gardening catalogs and websites and have since placed my order for new planting.  Last Sunday, Kirk helped me turn up the soil in those boxes and mix in some new topsoil. They will be ready to receive new plants as soon as they arrive.  While turning over the soil in the boxes, I unwittingly and ruthlessly uprooted some yet-to-be unfurled fern fronds which had been growing in the lower boxes, planted there by previous owner of the house, Ed Cohen.  I had no idea what they were; they looked kind of ugly and I thought they were weeds coming back to infest my garden boxes.  Not until I chanced upon a picture of fiddleheads in the Slow Love Life blog by Dominique Browning did I realize what I had done.  Luckily some of them survived.

Mulan Magnolia

Also in our backyard are some flowering trees, one with large pinkish flowers, the other with white blossoms.  I think the former is Magnolia liliifora, also called Mulan Magnolia or Tulip Magnolia.  The latter, I believe, is Japanese Cherry tree, Prunus serrulata.  The white blossoms look similar to the plum flowers I remember from Taiwan but I guess plums and cherries are not exactly the same.

Cherry Blossoms

By the way, I was told by Ed that the Wisteria vine at our Pergola in the backyard, for which our house is named, is not guaranteed to bloom every year.  It will be such a shame if it doesn't this year!  Alas, it is not showing any sign of blooming so far.

Hyacinth toppled over
of its own weight

The bulbs I planted in the fall are coming up nicely.  Here is a picture of my hyacinths weighed down by their own blossoms.  
They looked like drunken sailors in a row; I had to prop them up with sticks.