The US Botanic Garden is one of my favorite places in Washington DC. I make it part of just about every visit. It is located on the Smithsonian Mall side of the US Capitol building. There were a lot of people around for the Kite Festival the day I was there in March; it was beginning to feel crowded by the time we finished our walk around the conservatory an hour after it opened. The warmth and lush vegetation of the conservatory were a welcome contrast to a blustery spring day!
Outdoors the birds were fluffy in the cold.
The pitcher plants still had some color but were showing the ravages of winter as were some of the other plants in the garden.
The tables and chairs were out in the gardens but it was too cold to be comfortable sitting in them. The sounds of the water in the First Ladies Water Garden were soothing --- no warmth though! At least the miniature iris and daffodils were blooming.
We’ve had a cold spring in Maryland. The plum and cherry trees are not yet in full bloom so I’ll wait to post photographs of them later. The hyacinths and daffodils have been blooming for over a month. Perhaps the cold has kept them vibrant for longer than usual.
The iris, tulips and lilies are up. The deer have eaten the tulips to the ground and the lilies are only looking a little better because their foliage grows rapidly after the deer have eaten the above ground parts. The iris either have not been found by the deer or are not tasty enough for them.
The chives and lemon balm are up in the garden. It’s been too cold to do the usual garden clean out so I tell myself that the old leaves make good mulch for the tender plants.
The edge of the woods has waning daffodils and spindly forsythia.
The maple branches have been trimmed so high that the only up close view of the blooms is finding a recently downed twig in the grass. The tree itself seems to be blooming unevenly this year. There are lots of red tuffs at the crown of the tree and only sparse ones in the middle and lower part of the tree.
Spring is here…getting more established every day. A few warm days will get us all out working on cleaning out our garden beds!
My walk around Brookside Gardens this month was brisk; it was quite cold. There was some progress toward spring since last month’s walk. More twigs have brightened in color. Sometimes - it is the growth from last year that is the most brilliantly colored.
And there are more bulbs up. The snow drops are beginning to fade.
The shelf fungus on an old stump that I check from time to time had been damaged. Pieces had been torn off. I left the pieces where they were and noticed the gill structure that is so hard to see when they are still attached to the stump.
The witch hazel that was blooming last month is still blooming - a welcome bit of color among other trees that are still winter bare.
The buds on the rhododendron are swelling. They are primed for spring.
In general the scene near the front of the conservatories was a good summary of the outdoor state of Brookside in early March: cold wilted ivy, a sprinkling of daffodils, and witch hazel.
Celebrating the whole of life....
Thanks for visiting my blog! Enjoy the photo picks from 2023:
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