The Bloodroot pictured above responded to yesterday’s sun by opening its’ flowers. Bloodroot or Sanguinaria canadensis occurs in our native hardwood forests and as you would expect from its’ name has a red colored root. For me it’s one of spring’s delights to rediscover each year on my garden journey. I treasure it as it’s fleeting–a spring efemeral disappearing to go dormant during the summer. Wikipedia gives more information to its habit and medicinal uses. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodroot
The photo below shows the colony a week earlier on a cloudy day. It also shows the unique way the leaves clasp and emerge with the bud. I find these details fascinating to notice and watch. Like the spring garden, it’s the unfolding of the emerging plants that pulls me outside to walk the garden paths.
As I write this, I pause to consider how I blog about the plants and my fascination with them–yet I know that I couldn’t enjoy them if the design of my gardens and landscape did not employ the structure of paved paths, stepping stones, patios, structural plantings and all the features of creating the spaces so that the plants become stars. As a landscape designer I always start a new design creating the space and then the planting compositions that shine in waves. As an enjoyer of gardens, I take for granted the spatial creations and focus on the pleasure of the flowers and plant combinations in all the seasons. As a gardener my focus is healthy successful plants.
In early spring–indeed this late spring–I’m hungry for these signals of hope. So each day, I journey through my gardens looking for these wonder inspiring moments. Makes ‘everything’ a little easier I find. For you, too, may you find hope in emerging gardens.
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