Could it be any greener? Our regular walks in a local park here in the Seattle area in the Pacific Northwest are now just a symphony of electric green after a whole lot of rain this week. The darling little ferns are licorice ferns, and they like to live on bigleaf maples, which these are. See all those leaves on the ground?
Licorice ferns grow on mossy bigleaf maple trunks in December after much rain
Bonus image!
Woodland trail in Seahurst Park in Burien, Washington
I love flowers that bloom in wintertime. The weather is still very cold and gray in the Seattle area, but the hellebores are being beautiful for us, already.
Tonight is the year’s longest night in the Northern Hemisphere. In Seattle, today was only eight hours long. But now the light returns! Today is Winter, but we move onwards every day towards the Equinox, and Spring.
The shortest day of the year means the darkest times are behind us.
Ooooh, that was one dark sky! Sunny, windy, but not yet rainy. I did no photo adjustment to speak of, either; this image is very faithful to that vista. But just for fun, put “rain coming” in the search bar and see if you like those any.
November rain finally coming, in Seattle, Washington
This is from a Crimson Glory rosebush I rooted from a cutting a few years ago. Here in Seattle we are expecting big rain, finally, so I picked this fall blossom.
This cedar tree in my back yard looks like a regular-sized tree, until you realize the fence is six feet tall and the bench is a regular garden bench. Our guess is that the tree is maybe 300 years old. It is getting ready to drop some needles like it does every fall. It is waiting for rain, like we all are in Western Washington.
A quick flash of sun against a dark rainy sky, that’s what I love about spring garden photos. The pink dogwood to the right is just in bud, but the Japanese magnolia is in full bloom.
Japanese magnolia tree blooms in a Seattle sunbreak