Wednesday, May 4, 2016

May Day (the flower kind)


At the very start of Spring, I wanted to experience a new botanical garden in Minnesota, that I have never visited.  A search uncovered the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chaska, Minnesota.  It was a beautiful day, and Rich and I enjoyed viewing and photographing the spring blooms.


There are multiple beds of tulips, bunched together by their variety, and each has a little sign to tell you what it is, so if you like it you can seek out the plant to add to your own garden.  This is true for all the plants at the Arboretum.  It is a living laboratory of the U of M for the cultivation of plants that will tolerate and survive our environment.  As you drive up you can see groves of apple trees.  We arrived just in time for the spring bloom.




Spring flowers just make me very happy!  I don't have the dedication to start anything like this at my own home, so I bought us a family membership so we could go and enjoy the work of others.



The Arboretum is divided up into many themed gardens.  We walked through many of them.  Below was a gathering of Red Bud trees.  Very Pretty!




Perhaps the most dramatic on this day was the flowering of all the crab-apple trees.  They have a hillside grove of hundreds of varieties, blooming in multiple colors.  Such a wonderful way to wake up a winter-weary soul.



A closeup!




I had to take a picture of this plant below, for I have planted one last year in my yard.  It is a hardy magnolia that can survive our winters.  My own is just a little bush that managed to put out about three blossoms this year.  This picture inspires me what is possible as it grows.




Here is one of the blossoms from my own tiny bush.  It has a long way to go, but did survive the winter.  Keep growing little plant!