Tag Archives: Spring

What is Around the Corner?

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Lower Garden Path
Heatherwood Japanese Garden

Trees, shrubs, and ground covers frame the lower path of our Japanese garden area. I can hear water rushing, but there is no sign of it. What lurks around the corner of the path? Trees and carefully placed bends in the pathway obscure what is beyond.

The garden is filling in. It is hard to realize that only six years ago that this area was a grass lawn. ‘Visioneering’, imagination, design iterations, and some hard work formed the structure. Mother Nature did the rest!

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Stop … Enjoy the Moment

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Purple Rhody and Beyond
Heatherwood Upper Garden

Many times I stroll through the garden with my camera just enjoying the beauty without really searching for images. Then an image just pops up. I stop and enjoy the scene before me. I see shapes, textures, and colors. The individual subjects blend together to create a feeling of beauty. I enjoy the moment. Then I bring my camera up to my eye and create an image.

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Framed

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Summer Gold Japanese Maple
Heatherwood Woodland Garden

Walking along the woodland path I looked east and caught a glimpse of a Summer Gold Japanese maple through the blooming redbuds. The gold of the maple peeked through the pink blooms of the redbuds. The blue Storm Cloud amsonias provided a base for the image. The warm morning sun lit up the whole scene. Heatherwood is so full of color in the spring. Every morning the garden entices me to come out and take a stroll to see what new is blooming or emerging.

Even with all the turmoil that is going on, there are many wonderful things that are right with our world. We just need to open our eyes with an open mind.

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Transition

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Transitioning Blooms
Heatherwood Crabapple Grove

Heatherwood’s crabapple grove consists of a large drift of daffodils, multiple flowering viburnums, other woody shrubs and seven glorious crabapples. Spring starts with a flowing sea of daffodils. As they fade, the first crabapples start to bloom. Each of the crabapple species bloom at slightly different times. This gives us about a four week flow of colorful blooms. As the first crabapples start to fade, the viburnums start breaking out in full bloom. Over all, the crabapple grove gives us a constant change of blooming glory over the first two months of spring. In fall, a whole new series of interest is presented from fruit to changing fall leaf color.

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Here Come the Maples

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Filigree Japanese Maple
Heatherwood Japanese Maple

During the last couple of weeks our Japanese maples have been gradually leafing out in their beautiful spring attire. Seventy Japanese maples grace the Heatherwood landscape with their beautiful colors and shapes. Their colors are constantly changing throughout the seasons spring through fall. Through the winter their bark and irregular branch structure add special interest to the landscape.

We planted this weeping Filigree maple last year to complement a mountain lantern along our upper Japanese garden path. In years to come its branches will flow over the rocks above the path providing even more interest.

This year we have added five maples in our southwest garden plus two more in our upper northwest lawn. In addition, we are nursing two small baby maples in pots. Adding new maples is always a challenge in our harsh shrub steppe environment in Central Washington. Finding just the right places to shield the maples from the harsh summer sun is getting difficult as the garden fills up. As the conifers and deciduous trees mature and get taller, new opportunities arise.

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A Springtime Star

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Flowering Pear
Heatherwood Spring

Our flowering pear is one of our springtime garden stars. This pear along with the columnar maple were on the property when I moved in ten years ago. Today it anchors the southeast corner of the upper lawn and provides welcomed summer shade to a part of our lower patio. It is leaning with the prevailing winds and it leaves behind messy little pear drupes. Yet, it has character and is still one of our senior garden stars.

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Peeking Around the Corner

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Looking Through the Japanese Garden
Heatherwood Spring

A narrow stone path leads around the corner of our house. Immediately my eyes are flooded with spring color from Japanese maples, a flowering viburnum, a Japanese umbrella pine, and a weeping white pine. Then the Kotoji lantern by our hillside stream pops into view. It feels like the lantern is a scout looking over the garden.

The view as I walk around the corner is almost too much to take in all at once. Do I focus on the trees, shrubs, and ground covers that surround me? Or, do I look up through the trees and see the surprises peeping out through the foreground? Or, do I just pause and take it all in one little piece at a time? I usually do the latter.

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Spring Color #5

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Akebono in Full Bloom
Heatherwood Spring

The white blooms of the Akebono cherries accent the edges of Heatherwood’s Japanese garden area. Two Akebonos anchor the eastern and western edges of the garden. A third shields the edge of the pond. While the length of the blooms are fleeting, the grace of the trees continue throughout the year.

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Spring Color #4

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Pink Flair Cherries in Late Afternoon
Heatherwood Spring

Nothing is more beautiful than late afternoon sunshine raking across our garden as a last hurrah on a cloudy day. Flowering cherries are the main subject again in our spring landscape. Eight Pink Flair cherries form an allee border for our perennial garden. As the trees mature, they will form a wall of color along the garden hillside.

These trees are a haven for spring nesting. Last year, I counted around a dozen nests. Robins are constantly fluttering about building new nests. Soon the allee will become a hatchery.

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