Spring Blooms in the Foothills

I love the spring. Everything returns to life. It is the resurrection of nature. Here are some photos of spring emerging in our yard!

The pollen from the pines and the oaks are something else. It is sticky and it covers everything. Here are photos of these two natives in full bloom!

Digger pine blooms

If you click on that photo, you can see why a pine cone looks the way it does as it develops. We have a variety of oaks, and this is a photo of blue oak blooms.

Oak blossoms

I love the smoke bush as the colors are so incredible, and here is what it looks like as it comes back to life.

Smokebush before it smokes

Our dogwood is just starting to leaf and bloom and here is a photo of the delicate flower that this tree produces.

A dogwood blossom

Did you know that Ginko helps memory? I am glad that this tree remembers to come back every year! The leaves are little fans and here they are springing to life.

Ginko springs forth!

And the lavender will soon be attracting bees!

Emerging lavender

The Helleborus is amazing with the little freckles all over the petals.

Helleborus

And the first of the iris are here!

Iris in bloom

One of the natives that is truly glorious is the hazelnut. Isn’t this a beautiful leaf?

Native hazelnut

One of the prettiest of the natives is the redbud. At the lower elevations they are done blooming, but here they are just coming out. Standing near this tree is like standing by a beehive. It is buzzing!

Redbud in bloom

And to close this trip of spring in bloom, here are the remains of a dandelion that bloomed pretty early.

The last of the fairies

I will take you back to revisit all of these plants later in the season so that you can see how they change!

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