Bloom Day: March 2015

Bloom day images are a bit delayed this week due to record setting rains, with nearly two inches falling in my area in a single day. Spring is the time of flowering shrubs in my yard:

The sweetly scented sweet olive (Osmanthus x burkwoodii):

The rains took a bit of toll on it:

Northwest staple (and potential invasive species) English laurel (Prunus laurocerasus), looking a bit like bottlebrush flowers with its many fuzzy anthers and other floral bits:

The so-called "red neck rhododendron" (Daphniphyllum macropodum) is nearly in bloom. I love the red color and the bold, horizontal leaves:

Berberidaceae represents itself well in early spring with mahonias and barberries. Here is the low-growing low Oregon grape (Mahonia nervosa) with spending purple winter foliage contrasting nicely with the yellow blooms:

An evergreen barberry, Berberis replicata:

 

Northwest staple Oregon grape, Mahonia aquifolium. Most onlinen resources get the height of this plant all wrong, suggesting it only grows to 6 feet / 2 meters. In fact in can grow three times that height in the right conditions. It develops great wine colored foliage in full sun during the winter, which fades back to green just as the bright yellow flowers emerge.



 

Viburnum x pragense never seems to stop blooming:

 

 

Pieris japonica cultivars also have along bloom period. The bumblebees seem to love them.

 

And vines! This Clematis armandii. It was supposed to be the 'Apple Blossom' cultivar which has a lovely peachy-pink blush, but unfortunately it appears it was mislabeled and is merely the white-flowered species. Still lovely though.

Vinca minor is much derided as a mundane groundcover, but the blossoms are lovely up close, and the plants are evergreen and tough as nails in dry shade once established.

Also blooming but refusing to be photographed: Cymbalaria muralis, Viola labradorica, and a few other small-flowered early perennials.