Starting to Pop! The heat has really caused things to start moving in the garden this week. I was sitting on the back patio this morning reading the newspaper when a flash of red caught my eye. The sun was backlighting the Japanese Maple (Acer palmatum), and you could see new leaves sprouting from its thin limbs. I have no idea what variety this tree is, as we inherited it with the garden, but it us one of my favorites. It has blood read leaves at both the beginning and ending of the season and a "weeping" habit that makes it move wonderfully in the breeze. It has an interesting trait, too. Instead of dropping all of its leaves each Winter, many hang on until their are literally pushed off the limb by the growing buds and emerging leaves.
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The Freesia bulbs that are scattered around the garden are now in bloom, too. They look a little forlorn as there is not nearly enough sun for them. Their foliage flops over unceremoniously, although their flower stalks usually stand up for a while. Some are purple, some yellow and this thriving example is a bright pink among the spent leaves of the Paperwhites (Narcissus papyraceus) .
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Finally, the Crape Myrtle (Lagerstroemia) has started showing its small, waxy leaves. This tree also suffers from too little sun, but the flowers it manages to put out cheer that corner of the garden, so it stays. I suppose if I was more of an arborist, I would ball and burlap this small tree and move to the front garden where it might better thrive. I hadn't really thought about that before, but that might be just the thing to try. Hmmmmm.
