National Arboretum – Deciduous Magnolias

The deciduous magnolias at the National Arboretum suffered the same fate as many of the early blooming trees in the area: many of the flowers and buds were caught by the frosts of March and just turned brown. There are a few on every tree that survived. I tried to photograph some of those isolated flowers. I liked the pink tinge underneath the outer petals of this flower and

The center of this one framed by uncurling petals.

Looking up into one tree – to get some sky along with some flowers – shows the extent of the damage. Most of the flowers did not survive the frost.

National Arboretum – Wild Flowers

In the early spring, the Fern Valley section of the National Arboretum features many wild flowers. The forest floors in our area bloom before the leaves leaf out and the shade becomes almost total. The entrance of the garden is in full bloom.

A little further on the dried fronds of last summer’s ferns  look like feathers (similar to ones I’ve photographed at Brookside Gardens).

The wildflowers are small so it is worthwhile to walk slowly and look for color amongst the dried leaves. There is signage that helps with identification. These are Prairie Trillium.

And then there were several Bloodroot in bloom.

These didn’t have a sign but they look like a type of Phlox.

There were lots of Virginia Bluebells.

Violets were starting to bloom. Based on the foliage…there will be a lot more blooming in a few weeks.

The Sweet Betsy Trillium was a largest of the flowers.

Wild flowers bloom early and last a short time…I’m glad we had a sunny day to visit the Arboretum…to photograph the ones in bloom last weekend.

National Arboretum – Dogwood Blossom Sequence

When we visited the National Arboretum last weekend, it was a little too early for the dogwoods to be in full bloom – but I did find a tree that had buds in various stages of opening. After seeing the bud popping at Mt. Pleasant last week (thumbnail at the left), I was looking for tree to capture a sequence of the flowers developing.

I found it near the parking lot for the Dogwood Collections at the Arboretum. The first think I noticed about the buds just a little further along than the Mt. Pleasant tree, were the pink tinge at the tips. The flower will retain that different coloration as it develops.

Some of the flowers are in groupings of two or three…and all the buds in the group are not at the same stage of development. The center of the flower seems huge compared to the petal-like bracts just after the bracts have opened enough.

The petals expand. They will eventually turn white…but evidently stay green during the early part of the growth. Noted that the pinkish area on the middle edge of each bract is still pink!

More about what I saw (and photographed) at the National Arboretum in tomorrow’s blog post…