Lilacs

In bloom right now!

All sorts of flowers

Spring is turning to summer. Apple trees were at their best last week and now have dropped their petals. Lilies of the valley have filled the forest behind our house. Lilacs are in full bloom. Daisies are already in second generation, first one having sent it's seeds flying. Nature is at its best.

Still just about to bloom, a week ago

Friends' crab apple tree, still looking good

Primroses

Last year there was one primrose plant right next to our fence. This spring I noticed several more in the flowerbed at the edge of our backyard. Maybe they were there already last year too, covered by all them tall weeds, and I just didn't notice them. Now I pulled out the weeds around them, and the roses I planted last summer, to give them a chance to grow and prosper (and be seen).

Of course, the apple trees also are looking more and more brilliant as more flowers open their petals. Yesterday evening they were already looking so nice, especially as the evening sun rays hit them diagonally.

From blossoms to blooming

Apple trees, naturally, I still don't have that cherry tree I've been dreaming of since I was 12 and visited Japan. Apple trees in our yard are the next best thing, though. Extremely pretty when blooming. Those little pink blossoms have not all opened yet, but they're getting there. 

Wilds strawberries are im flower too. And butterflies and bees are buzzing around in the dandelions and other flowers.

Apple blossoms

I was away on a business trip for a few days and when I came back home, our apple trees were full of green little leaves and pink little blossoms. The red currant and ghostberry bushes have leaves and little flowers too. This morning I saw a lonely bumblebee doing his job pollinating the red currant.

Tulips and leaf buds

Spring has advances in leaps and bounds now that the temperature went from a couple degrees to 20C in one night or so. Tulips in our yard are happily blooming, birches have a faint green about them, apple trees have buds and cherry trees in the neighboring yards are blooming. Our bushes have little leaves and the butterbur a few flowers. Rhubarb is growing nicely. Wood anemonies are at their best.

Green stuff

Our nature does not seaze to amaze me with its flexibility when it comes to the temperatures in spring. It has been real cold these past days, but the rain then and sun now have caused another burst in the green. Bushes and the earliest trees are pushing out leaves and flowers keep popping up everywhere.

Wood anemonies

Wood anemonies have started to pop out now too. Spring seems to be pretty late and slow this year, but the flowers are pushing out anyway. That's the way it goes here in the northern hemisphere. The plants are probably way better adjusted to the unrelenting cold than most of us people. 

More flowers in the yard

It's the time of the year, when the yard changes every day. Today I noticed that our narcissi have started to bloom. There's also some blue flowers here and there. This bush at the edge of the hedge next to our driveway is in bloom too.

Birds and flowers

I absolutely love spring. When the first (and only, as far as I know) crocus opens its flower in our yard, when trees start to get their little buds, when an orchestra of birds chirp and wagtails, starlings and blakcbirds hop on our lawn, when rhubarb pushes its wrinkly sprouts through the still cold dirt, when sun feels warm and wonderful on exposed skin. 

Hepatica

Hepaticas have popped up here and there in the forest and next to our garage door.

First flowers of the spring

Over the past couple days snow has melted almost completely in our yard and now it smells like spring, looks like spring, even sounds like spring with the birds chirping way into the late evening. Bunnies are actively looking for mates, invading our yard too, driving our dogs crazy. Tulips are pushing through the barely melted ground and the first scilla sibericas are now blooming. The apple trees have pushed out the tiniest of buds.