Purple Hyacinth
Flowering Quince
Heath
What a beautiful spring day we had today. On the way out this morning I stopped to take some pictures of daffodils blooming on either side of the walk. Then later I stopped to pick up Dorothy and took more pictures of flowers there. The first is looking down on a spike of purple hyacinth flowers. I took more from the side but they look pretty much the same as the pink flowers I posted a photo of recently. I thought this different angle would be more interesting. I also like the intense blue toward the middle of the cluster of flowers.
The second picture is of a flowering quince (one of the three Chaenomeles species, not to be confused with the proper quince, Cydonia oblonga). This is just starting to bloom and has lots of small, pink flowers that are quite pretty. I was out without my tripod, so this isn’t as sharp as it might be, but probably good enough for jazz. This is a nice shrub to grow for early spring color. I personally get tired of all the yellow forsythia and would welcome more of this.
Finally, we have the tiny flowers of a heath plant. Heath and heather are quite similar, with heather having smaller scale-like leaves. They both have tiny flowers of white, pink, or purple. Some of the heath species bloom in the winter, and they bloom for a fairly long period, which is nice. This one is actually past it’s peak of blooming.
Both heath and heather (Calluna vulgaris) are calcifuges (plants that do not tolerate alkaline soil). Like azaleas, they thrive in places with low pH and in fact most will not grow if the pH is greater than 6.5. I’d be curious to know if the deer bother them. If you have deer in your garden and you grow either heath or heather, let me know in the comments.
Thank you, Maureen and Bob, for sharing your garden with us today.