Blankets of color and, well, blankets

Welcome to my street in the midst of spring.



If you were to drive up our street today, this is what you would see--our neighbor's dogwood tree shot from beneath his neighbor's flowering crab tree.

We have fuchsia-colored azaleas along the front of our house. They are just beginning to bloom right now.



This lonesome-little dogwood flower picture was shot from our backyard. I had expected great things this year from our three relatively new dogwood trees. Mother Nature, however, had other plans. Sadly, a huge limb fell on the best of the trees, decapitating it. I think it will make it but it will have lost its lovely shape.



Our neighbor's tree below and also pictured in the second photo suffered damage, as well. Nevertheless, up-close its blossoms are spectacular.



It is said that the dogwood flower is like the cross on which Jesus was crucified because of its two long and two short petals. Each petal is stained with the rust of the nails and with the blood; in the center is a crown of thorns.

At our other next-door neighbor's house you will find a redbud tree. I don't think that it should be called a redbud tree because the buds aren't really red, they are a purple-ly pink color. I think it should be called the purple-ly pink tree. At Cambridge they don't worry about what color it is; they simply call it a Judas tree. Legend has it that Judas hanged himself on such a tree and that because of his suicide the flowers blush in shame. I'm not really sure why Arkansans call it a redbud. You would think that since Arkansas is in the middle of the Bible belt that we would have jumped at a chance to give it a Biblical name.

So now it is Easter week and the dogwoods and redbuds are in bloom. Of course, the liturgical and horticultural calendars don't always coincide but this year they do.



While the calendar says it's spring, Mother Nature hasn't exactly gotten the memo. Temperatures are dropping below freezing at night, so we have to cover up our flowers and tender foliage. Our front yard is looking better than in the weeks immediately following the ice storm. Incidentally, the tall pink tree at the corner of our house below is a pink dogwood. Our azaleas are covered with the sheets. The pink dogwood kind of clashes with the azaleas. However, if you cover the azaleas, it ceases to be a problem.



In the back yard I've cleared away most of the weeds and we have a new picket fence. Isn't it cute? The tree trimmer has yet to return to grind down the old stumps. The yard isn't ready for a spread in Home and Garden but we're getting there.