Springtime Blooms Both Outside and In

It’s been spring around here for a while, but I’m just now getting around to posting about it.  Frankly, I’ve been either working through it or sitting out on my back deck enjoying it.  Now that nearly everything is in bloom (azaleas still to come), I’ll show you what I’ve been enjoying for the last few weeks.

The quince was the first to bloom, and what a show it puts forth.  These bushes are quite humdrum throughout most of the year—little foliage and thorny branches—but they sure make up for it in the early spring when they fill with beautiful pink blossoms.  The buds were out in December, when I still didn’t know what they were, and I was concerned that they would end up getting frost bitten, but they withstood the harsh weather and have been in bloom for the past month and half or so.  I’ve found that this is a wonderful time to prune them because they also bloom well indoors—although the flowers are much paler when forced to bloom inside.  I recommend choosing a branch with plenty of flowers already in bloom and still some buds left to bloom to ensure that you have both bright flowers and long-lasting arrangements.  I have about ten or fifteen around the yard, and some are quite overgrown, so I am pruning mine back a good bit.  Unlike many shrubs, you need to prune these to the ground, so I have been cutting them back by about a third by pruning canes at or near the ground level.  This should encourage new shoots in their places (or so I read).

Early blooming quince on the mantel

Right behind the quince were the daffodils and forsythia.  Both are still in bloom and have put on quite a show.  We have about three times as much forsythia as quince, so my yard is covered in yellow right now.  These also bloom well indoors.  I have filled numerous vases with stems, and the blooms have lasted over a week.  You should know that until recently I thought these were yellow bells (because that’s what someone told me they were when we moved in last year), but pictures on the Internet have confirmed that they are forsythia.  I have much enjoyed snipping forsythia branches and daffodil clusters for the house.

Forsythia arrangement in the den

The quince is on its way out, and the forsythia is starting to turn mostly green, but the bridal-wreath spirea is filling their places.  What looked like overgrown nothing last summer is now a beautiful, delicate hedge of shoots of tiny white flowers around my yard this spring.  I have tucked stems of these in around the daffodils and forsythia inside, and it has given the arrangements such a nice homey feel.  Of all the flowers in bloom in my yard right now, these are the most old timey to me, and I love them because they make me feel like I’m in the country or at a grandmother’s house.  I’ll still have to prune many of them this year, but I’m glad they aren’t as ho-hum as I once thought.

Daffodils and spirea on the dining table

So far this spring, I have learned how fortunate I am to have ended up buying a house with a yard that was tended by people who took care to choose shrubs with coinciding, complimentary blooming times and people who have unknowingly taught me that just because a plant doesn’t look like much at certain times of the year doesn’t mean that it is worthless all together.