Spring

Spring in S.W. Washington is glorious - it lasts for several months - is calm, sweet and very flowery.  Because our weather is mild and takes a long time to change seasons we are able to enjoy the spring flowers for a long time.

 Spring starts out with daffodils and tulips - they are both commercially grown in this area and there are thousands of acres of them blooming every spring.  On warm spring days if you drive past the daffodil fields with the car windows rolled down you can smell the daffodils.

 Besides the commercially grown, most of the yards in our area plant small and large patches of daffodils and tulips.  I have planted 60 daffodils and 40 tulips in pots this year - for spring blooms.  The deer in our area think of tulips as candy so I plant them in pots on the deck.  The deer never touch daffodils.

 And then the flowering trees - flowering peach, flowering plum, double flowering peach, flowering crabapple and many more, line streets, yards and even the school yards.  Often the streets look like they are covered in pink snow.

 We are so lucky to have vast fields of dandelions - they spread out across fields, golf courses and yards.  I love it when they have all gone to "wishes".  We get very few dandelions in our yard because of living so close to the woods, but the few we do get are welcome, only last a little while and then disappear to wait for next year.  These photos were taken in a city park that overlooks Bellingham Bay.

Dandelions are often the first flowers that bees can visit in the spring - they are an important source of food for bees and help them survive until more flowers a blooming - the best reason to let dandelions grow.

 Pansies - growing like weeds.  They often over winter and bloom magnificently in the spring.  I collect them and press them in big books.  Someday I hope to have a flower press.  Now I need to find a project to use all the pressed pansies.

In the spring of 2014 we went to West Virginia for two weeks to visit our grandson Donnie (and his parents) and early one morning I heard the cardinals in their big tree - what a glorious sight. 

 Flowers in yards and lilies in a friend's greenhouse

 Dogwood - pink and white - are favorites of many.  The big cemetery in town is lined with dogwood.  There are wild ones growing in the woods.  We discovered one growing just across the street from our house in the edge of the woods - it had one blossom last spring - we are hoping for more each year.

 Spring is also quilt washing time - and quilt refolding time (so the quilts don't have permanent creases where they have been folded).  We use our quilts a lot so it is a good idea to wash them in the spring - and in the fall if the weather cooperates.

Our spring is lovely and long, and beautiful.

What are your favorite spring flowers?  My daughter and I decided that our favorite flower is the one we are looking at, at the moment.

Mosaic Monday