“Forest Pansy Redbud”
Heatherwood Spring
Heatherwood continues to give up something new and interesting every time we stroll around the garden. Little elements of nature abound at every turn. These gifts are for the taking. I just need to recognize them and add a little creativity.
“Kotoji, Waterfall, & Japanese Maple”
Heatherwood Japanese Garden
I keep coming back to this view in our Heatherwood Japanese garden. The Japanese maples continuously change in color, shape, and texture through the revolving seasons. In time they will flow over the stream’s edge becoming one with it. The Kotoji Japanese lantern acts like a guardian over the stream stabilizing the scene with its graceful legs .
The Guardian
A Japanese maple gently bends,
Shielding the flowing stream,
As the guarding Kotoji overlooks.
“Waterfall & Kotoji”
Heatherwood Japanese Garden
Spring brings out the energy of emerging new life. The sensitivity of infrared to the bright greens and yellows highlight spring’s energy. Springtime in Heatherwood is the time for me to explore with my infrared photography.
“Impressionistic Variegated Redtwig Dogwood”
Heatherwood Spring
As I stroll around Heatherwood, I am constantly on the alert for those little vignettes that catch my eye. For this shaded scene, I first noticed contrasting blue and green colors. Looking closer, the contrasting textures of grasses, the variegated redtwig dogwood, and the background blue spruce add to the interest. Reviewing the image on my computer, I thought that it would be interesting to view it as a painting. I added an impressionistic flair to achieve this image.
“Milky Way Dogwood”
Heatherwood Woodland Garden
I remember roaming around the eastern woodlands in Virginia and North Carolina and enjoying the early blooming white dogwoods and redbuds. I can visualize visiting Jefferson’s Monticello with its surrounding eastern woodlands decorated with dogwoods and redbuds. It brings back many wonderful memories.
Here at Heatherwood in Eastern Washington, I am trying to recreate a little of this dream memory. Last year, we planted a redbud grove and a couple of white dogwoods. However the dogwoods were late bloomers and did not coincide with the redbuds. This year we planted two early blooming white dogwoods and have been successful in matching their blooming times. As trees get a little larger, we will add some rhododendrons to complete the scene.
“The Old Timer”
Heatherwood Spring
This glorious crabapple highlights the corner of our house and the Heatherwood Japanese garden. The tree was planted here before I moved back to Selah in 2016. It is very close to the house and hangs over the entry path to the side of the Japanese garden. Its original shape was heavily leaning and contorted. Over the years, I have selectively pruning it to recover its shape and provide clearance to walk under it on the path. Each year I remove a branch or two to “guide” it in the direction I want it to grow while maintaining its overall health. The tree is beautiful and provides a special anchor to our springtime Japanese garden.
“Prairefire Crabapple”
Heatherwood Spring
Today we return to a deep pink flowering crabapple. The various colors of the different trees provide a beautiful contrast in Heatherwood’s crabapple grove. They have varied between white, whitish pink, light pink, and deep pink. The trees’ barks, leaves, blooms, and fruits are all different. They all contribute to variety of little surprises that change from season to season.
This post shows the last crabapple that we have planted in our small crabapple grove. The trees are small now. We patiently wait enjoying each surprise they give us as we contemplate what they will be like in the years to come.
“Golden Raindrops Crabapple”
Heatherwood Spring
“Golden Raindrops” is our sixth crabapple that has bloomed this spring. Each one blooms about one week after its predecessor. It would like to say that the sequence was meticulously planned. But I can’t. We did pay attention to notes that indicated if the species was a late, mid, or early bloomer. With the sequence, we have about three in bloom at one time after the third on starts.
This crabapple is unique in that it has little golden apples in the fall.
“Don Egolf Redbuds”
Heatherwood Woodland Garden
Last spring we planted nine redbuds as part of our new Woodland Garden. The blooms were gone at the time we planted them. This spring they erupted in bright pink buds. It will take years for this part of the garden to mature. But. we look forward to seeing it evolve over the years to come. As a comparison, the following image from the Yakima Arboretum is what we may expect these young redbuds to mature into.
“Mature Redbud in Spring Glory”
Yakima Area Arboretum, Washington
“Sango Kaku Japanese Maple”
Heatherwood Woodland Garden
What would a woodland garden be without a Japanese Maple. Our “Woodland Garden” started out as a redbud/dogwood grove. This year we extended the grove to include a Saratoga Ginko, a flowering plum, three maple shade trees, as well as two additional dogwoods, and several virbunums and other woodland shrubs. This little ‘Sango Kaku’ is our latest addition. The additional shrubs and ‘Sango Kaku’ linked the redbuds and dogwood grove to existing birches and maples. As the new trees grow and create a little shade, we will be adding rhododendrons and azaleas and other understory shade loving plants to create the woodland garden.