Rhododendrons, or rhodies as we call them affectionately, bloom extremely well here in the Pacific Northwest. They reach their peak about now. If you live in the Seattle area, you can probably see ones as tall as houses, here and there. This old one is blooming right in front of my house. Lucky me!

Many shades of pink in this rhododendron blooming in the spring sunshine

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These sweet, tiny, white bells are some of my very top-favorite flowers. Luckily, they thrive on the front (north) side of my house. A handful of them in a vase is a heady experience. The fragrance is sublime, and like a sweet dream. Can you tell I love these flowers? I really love this image of them and I’m calling it my Best Post of the Week.

Convallaria majalis, or lily of the valley, blooming in the garden

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I learned the fancy word for what a lilac flower is: a panicle. Seems like a nice, strong word for a flower with such a remarkable shape and fragrance. Unforgettable. The ones in my front yard are finally beginning to bloom. Thank heaven for the garden.

Double lilac flowers decorate the sky.

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I love our two columnar apple trees. These are dwarfer than dwarf trees, bred to do well in containers or on patios. These two trees are 7 or 8 years old and have been in the ground a few years. One has red apples and one has yellow, and both are yummy. At this stage, the most important thing you can do for your fruit trees which need pollination is to make like a bee. Unless you have lots of bees and other helpful insects around, go out there with a little dry paintbrush, or a Q-tip, and go back and forth between the blossoms of the two trees. It’s incredible what a huge difference this makes in the amount of fruit that you get. Do it a few times so you get the early blooms and the late ones. Apple crisp, here I come.

Two columnar apple trees blooming in a bed of forget-me-nots

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These wonderful leaves were in a planter outside a commercial building in Seattle. What a difference some backlighting makes! The leaves might be a kind of dracena. Stay back!

Yellow and green spiky leaves in sunshine

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The magnolias are gorgeous this year. This tree in our backyard is one of the many dotting the neighborhood right now. And the horses in the pasture adjoining our property just love the fallen petals. They even eat the blooms that they can reach off the tree! No harm seems to be done.

Pink Japanese magnolias against a sunny sky in springtime

Two horses graze magnolia blossoms on a sunny spring day

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These red fritillaria, or checkered tulips, decorating my garden this week just float my boat. Both this kind and the other more purple-and-cream color a few posts below are doing so well in my garden. I love things that just come up and bloom, all by themselves. Those are grape hyacinths in the background, also easy and fun, and so welcome in springtime.

Dark red checkered tulips, or fritillaria, in the garden

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It’s raining. Yesterday there were a couple of breaks from the wet; today not so much. Here is a tulip out in front of my house taken on a weekend afternoon in Seattle.

Raindrops on dark pink and orange tulip petals

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Daphne odora marginata is a fabulous, mostly evergreen shrub that grows very well in the Pacific Northwest. It likes acid soil and not too much sun. I’ve always had good luck with them and adore them for their intense fragrance and also for the cheerful start to the spring blooming season they provide. One little bouquet of these tiny flowers will scent up the house.

Daphne odora marginata blooms on a sunny windowsill in late March

Linking in My Romantic Home, Outdoor Wednesday, Shadow Shot Sunday 2, Floral Friday, Weekend Flowers, NF Blo-Ma Tuesday, Today’s Flowers, Scenic Weekends, Pink Saturday, Thursday Challenge (Spring), and Macro Monday. Have a great weekend, and hope you get some sun and fragrance in it. Thanks for dropping by here.

This clump of old-fashioned variegated (green and white leaves) hosta grows in a very protected area at my front door and is up early, almost fully leafed out. When I was a tiny tot in Philadelphia in the fifties, I remember these grew at our house. Plant nostalgia!

Variegated hosta leaves almost fully leafed out.

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