Now past Memorial Day, I look back on how spring has been progressing in my neck of the northern New Hampshire woods. As usual, my personal obsession is with the flowers I see appearing. Along with a generous amount of dandelions, strawberry flowers, Canadian mayflowers and both violet and white violas have burst out of the front lawn. The back lawn has a glorious cluster of forget-me-nots, mostly blue but with a few white and pink ones sprinkled in. It gives me a good excuse for holding off on mowing the lawn.
Wildflowers appear in the patches of woods in my neighborhood.
I spotted this lovely patch of wood anemones just a short ways up the road from where I live.
Star flowers, Canadian Mayflowers, bunch berry and a solitary pink lady slipper have bloomed in the wood behind my home. The single flower of the lady slipper was a pleasant surprise as the plant had not put any blossoms for at least three years, something I attributed to the prolonged dry spell we had been having in northern New England. But the generous rains of last year must have given it a boost.
While technically a wild flower, I managed to convince a few trout lilies to grow alongside the foundation. Their yellow flowers, bowing their heads towards the ground, put on a quiet but pretty display along with large lavish green leaves.
Flowering bushes decorate many lawns around the neighborhood. Along with the forsythia and azaleas, there are flowering crab trees which seem to be putting on an extra lush display this spring.
But of course my all time favorite is the fragrant purple lilac bushes. Their wonderful odor conveys the essence of springtime as nothing else does for me.
This bush is popular enough so that the nearby town of Lisbon, New Hampshire has a Lilac Festival every Memorial Day weekend, rain or shine.
Now on to June! Happy springtime to all.