The plants are popping out very strongly on our warmer days.
They seem proud this year. The weather was rough, and the warmth came late. They suffered this Spring, but came through it OK.
I hope we can do the same!
This year we had a mild, wet winter, followed by a late cool-down, then a sudden warm-up. The result: Everything seemed to bloom at once!
This made available many non-showy tree flowers, which don’t get photographed very often.
All these photos were taken last weekend.
Nature area trees
Fruit trees
In this area, most fruit trees are introduced. I haven’t tried to figure out here exactly which types of tree these are. All the showy-flowered fruit trees are in the Rose Family (Rosaceae) along with familiar fruits like raspberries and strawberries.
Bees (present but not pictured) pollinate all Rose Family plants. In contrast, most of the non-showy tree flowers are wind-pollinated, and their seeds wind-scattered.
Daffodils
Somebody planted a lot of daffodils! I have never noticed them as much as I did this Spring. They are all over the place in the more recently developed areas. And I mean , really all over.
Introduced urban trees
I found this white-barked aspen near the top of the “south hill” in the hospital’s garden. It is not native to this area, nor is the birch pictured below. Birch, besides being somewhat delicate trees and preferring the protection of a forest, don’t seem to do that well in this area, but that doesn’t prevent this specimen in the middle of downtown from doing the best it can to reproduce.