Discoveries

We moved into our home in July of last year (I can hardly believe this year is moving so fast that we're only a few months of our first anniversary here!), so we missed the surprises that spring brings as plants and flowers sprout from the ground, unbidden. We're making a lot of discoveries this time around.

Lovely tulips have begun opening all over the backyard, providing colorful company for the fragrant white and deep blue lilacs and the many buds that are in evidence everywhere. Even the peonies, my very favorites, have started showing their unpromising heads, which will bloom into wondrous regalia later in the summer.

The pansies are annuals so I bought those at the supermarket recently but now they're doing really well in their respective planters.

The redbud tree is showing signs of impending life in its appropriately named color.

But the belles of the ball are the yellow and orange tulips, which are now opening on one side of the flower beds. There's a whole other set of tulips, which have yet to open, on the opposite side and we're looking forward to that surprise.

Spring here is a gift, for sure.

(BTW, these photos are all taken by my husband, who's long become this blog's best photographer.)