As a brief break from tulips, I thought I’d show you a new tree (to me), a star magnolia. The pretty white flowers were very fragrant, and 2 or 3 inches wide (5-8 cm). It was growing in a sweet little arboretum in Everett, WA, the Evergreen Arboretum & Gardens.

Fragrant white Star Magnolia blooms in April in Everett, WA

They also had a lovely and fragrant viburnum tree of some kind. Looking on google images for the name of this plant, I find Viburnum carlesii ‘Aurora’, or Korean spice viburnum, which looks very similar, except that the plant I saw seemed to be a tree, or maybe it was just a very mature shrub. But I want one.

Fragrant viburnum blooms in April in Everett, WA

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The late afternoon light made this row of red tulips with white edges especially scenic.

Late afternoon light illuminates a row of red tulips at the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival

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Another tulip in my front yard.

Simple yellow tulip close up in the garden

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We had one sunny, warm day. One. But it was perfection, and here in Seattle, everyone surely appreciated it. I went outside and my tulips were in full bloom.

Orange tulips bloom against a blue sky

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This pretty late-afternoon scene of peace roses in my front yard was taken last July. Summertime and its roses is only a few short months away.

Late on a July afternoon, a Peace rose blooms in my garden

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The weather has been so amazingly wet this month, breaking records in Seattle, but I want to do garden things. I started some seeds by soaking them overnight first, then put them in produce-type clamshells, the kind with holes already in them, and they sprouted in only 4 days! Here is a sunflower seedling showing its first baby leaves, not the true leaves soon to emerge. I love this image and am calling it my weekly Top Shot.

First leaves (cotyledon) of giant sunflower emerge on my windowsill

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The supermarket near me had a special on primroses, ten for $10, and I went for it. Multi-colored, long blooming, and sometimes they even return the following year—what’s not to like about primroses?

Red, yellow, pink and white primroses with crinkly leaves wait to be planted

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Plants have fashions like anything else, at least garden plants do. I don’t see too many people planting old-fashioned forsythia, but I don’t know why not. It blazes in such a flame of welcome color in the early spring.

Bright yellow forsythia blooms in early spring

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Feeling like summer is pulling me towards it. This was my yard in September.

Late afternoon sunshine makes shadows with a wooden backyard bench

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Taking a peek at the other side of the year, this orange cosmos flower bloomed in a friend’s garden in September. I’ve grown them myself, and they are easy from seed. Try some this year!

Bright orange cosmos flowers (about 2″ or 5 cm) bloom into the late summer

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