Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Gardens come back every year but always with an element of change. Like humans trees and plants have life spans. Some of my trees simply do not have the energy to leaf out in the spring and they die. I am particularly unsure of my Cercis canadensis ‘Forest Pansy’. I can only hope. Many of my hostas have simply disappeared. One of the reasons is that some of my companion plants have grown quite quickly and prevent the emerging shoots of the hostas to get any light.


But there are some features of the garden which repeat themselves. One of them is the blue/purple flowering of my Rhododendron augustinii ‘Marion McDonnell' right now. Here it is in a photograph I took May 2008 with Rebecca my granddaughter. Since then she has grown up, she straightens her hair every day and wears very white makeup. I might have to wait, if Rhododendron augustinii is patient, for a few years more to photograph her again with all her hair in the splendor I am used to.