Startled By Spring

When I look out my windows, I am startled by the changes that are now happening so quickly. 

There are leaves emerging, and flowering shrubs blooming and things popping out of the ground. 

The native dogwoods are beginning to bloom. 

The Oregon Grape and Viburnum burkwoodii are highly fragrant and fill the air with their sweet scent.

The native purple wood violets are popping up and beginning to bloom. 

Fancy trillium and pulmonaria.

Podophyllum, May Apple, is emerging. 

And that is just what I can see from my front window.  Around the yard, spring beauty is spreading.

 Freely seeding violas, once confined to a patio pot, have escaped and are blooming in the patio seams. 

 Bright new leaves on the bonsai maple.

 Lamium

 Grape hyacinths and chives.

 The espaliered apple trees are sprouting leaves. It remains to be seen how much they bloom this year. 

 Native flowering red currant.

New leaves on the red leaf Japanese maple. 

Tender shoots of bleeding heart. 

 So much beginning to erupt. 

 Low growing native Mahonia

 The first hostas emerging.

 Fat stalks of meadow rue pushing up. 

 A  martagon lily erupting. 

 Another bleeding heart already blooming as it pushed up out of the earth.

 Golden Japanese Forest Grass and grape hyacinths. 

 Tom has corralled the golden hop. He says it is growing a foot a day. 

Native wood sorrel, Oxalis, bubbles up under the cedar tree. 

 The Mouse plant, Arisarum proboscideum, is hatching little mousies.

 The sword ferns will soon send forth their fiddle heads. 

I took these photos on Thursday, when it was sunny. Now it is raining. Good. We need it. And from the house. looking out, the rain just makes the garden glow. 

I am startled by Spring! It is glorious.