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Thursday, April 29, 2010

the dog(wood) days of April

If anything, I have been noticing and loving the blooms of spring this year more than usual. Right now it's dogwood season. Dogwood is the provincial floral emblem of BC, so it holds a special place in the hearts and gardens of us British Columbians.

The dogwood is a small tree with four-season appeal. It has flowers (some even fragrant) in spring, berries in summer or fall, eye-catching leaves of red and orange in autumn and, in some varieties, bright red branches that contrast with the snow in winter.

As for habitat, dogwoods like moist, slightly acid soil with a location in sun to partial shade. The flowering dogwood (Cornus florida) is native to Ontario and BC (mainland, coastal areas, Fraser Canyon and Vancouver Island).

Here is a dogwood tree in bloom just behind the lawn bowling club that we pass on our walk every morning.


And up-close (blooming over the fence of a neighbouring townhouse complex)



These pink dogwoods are in bloom just across the street from our unit.



These beautifully shaped greenish coloured dogwoods bloom slightly later in the season, and last for a very long time. I captured them last summer.



To find out more about this beautiful flowering tree, go to this article on the Wild About Gardening.org website.

3 comments:

Rebecca Stark said...

Very pretty.

We don't have leaves on our trees yet, but they're budding.

Violet N. said...

Thank you Rebecca! Whenever I hear the Whitehorse weather forecast - which is every evening on the news - I think of you and how it must be in your neck of the woods. I imagine your springs to be more like the ones we had in Saskatchewan - swift, dramatic and very exciting. Am I right?

Donna said...

Soooo pretty! I don't think I've ever seen a dogwood tree in person before.
My neighbor has some beautiful flowers blooming. I'll have to take a picture and see if you know what kind they are. I haven't a clue.

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