Saucer Magnolia cones

I have grown up around the so-called "southern" Magnolia trees (Magnolia grandiflora) and I am very familiar with the cones which form after the flowers have died.  And I am familiar with the big red seeds that fall from the cones.  In fact, I have picked up a lot of these cones in my backyard, so I wouldn't run over them with the lawn mower.

Magnolia grandiflora seed cone

It took some convincing before I came around to the idea that the "Tulip Trees" I saw in Portland, Oregon several years ago were another variety from the Magnolia genus (Magnolia x soulangeana).  These trees are also called "Saucer Magnolias."  I have had a small Saucer Magnolia in my front yard now for about 7 years, but the resemblance to the more familiar Magnolia grandiflora is still abtruse.  Until last week, that is...

I was driving home and passed a large Saucer Magnolia on a neighboring street.  Our Saucer Magnolias bloom in the spring and early summer before the leaves come out.  As the blooms are wilting the leaves come out and the trees are covered in bright green leaves the rest of the growing season.  Occasionally our tree has produced another couple of blooms in the late summer or early fall, when the temperature is just right and there has been plenty of rain.  But what I was seeing on our neighbor's tree were not more blooms.  It was definitely something else - something I had never seen before.

Magnolia x soulangeana cone

The tree was covered in pink growths that looked a bit like fruit.  Since I was driving at the time, I decided to come back on foot and look more closely.

Magnolia x soulangeana seeds

What I saw was very different from the cones that form on our Southern Magnolia, but also very similar.  The bright pink color and smooth texture are very different from the fuzzy brown cones that form on our Southern Magnolia.  However, the red seeds that were emerging from some of these pink cones was very distinguishable and identical to our Southern Magnolia.

A Macro View of Spring

After getting a much nicer D-SLR camera, I realized a feature that had been on my more simple point-and-shoot camera.  I am very happy to have the new D-SLR, but I am also happy to know that one type of picture I was always struggling to get with my point-and-shoot is not so hard after all!

There is a macro setting that basically  instructs the camera to use a shorter focal length to focus on a nearby object in the foreground.

I like using this feature to get detailed shots of blooms or different features of plants.  So here's a look at some of the blooms from my last post - only in macro!

Saucer Magnolia Tree (Magnolia x soulangeana)

Saucer Magnolia Tree (Magnolia x soulangeana)

Flowering Almond Bush (Prunus glandulosa)

Flowering Quince Bush (Chaenomeles speciose)

Euphorbia martinii 'Tiny Tim'

Flowering Peach Tree (Prunus persica)

Flowering Peach Tree (Prunus persica)

Dwarf Rhododendron

Our "wild" violets - Wooly Blue Violet (Viola sororia)

Miniature Daffodils - thumb used for size comparison

Signs of Spring

A little over a week ago was the first day of Spring.  This year Spring greeted central Oklahoma with another snow event.  For the first time in my life, I lost count of how many times it snowed on us this Winter!  It was a record breaking year.

The good news to come from the snow is that everything was well watered throughout the cold half of the year.  And now the trees are starting to wake from their slumber.

A blooming fruit tree near our house

Every year I notice new things in the Spring.  This year I noticed many trees in my neighborhood covered in little fuzzy red along the tips of their branches.  The trees were so thoroughly covered that it almost looked like fall colors on the trees.  I thought maybe it was the new leaves coming out of buds on the trees.  On closer inspection, I decided they weren't leaf buds emerging, but tiny blossoms.  These trees are not what I would considering flowering trees.  I'm wondering if these trees always light up red in the Spring or if this only happens after really wet Winters like the one we just had.  I'm thinking this Winter and Spring were special.  Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of these trees and now they have stopped their show of red.  I'll be watching for this next year.

I pass this Forsythia on my way to work every morning. I like to call it the "Glowing Orb of Gold."

Our quince bush as of a couple of days ago.

Colors that I never miss in the Spring are the yellow Forsythias and pink Quince bushes.  They are some of my favorite colors during the year.  This year our Quince bush bloomed more than a month later than it did last year!  There are many other fruit trees in bloom: cherry, plum, peach and pear.

I pass this beautiful tree on my way to work each morning, as well.  I believe it is a Cherry tree. It is old and large and gorgeous. I couldn't capture it well in the picture. The blooms sort of blend in with the sky color. I'll have to try again next year.

Christie and I spent some time on Saturday just driving around town looking at all of the blooming trees.  It was like looking at Christmas lights.   We drove slowly down the streets, looking down each side street and backtracking whenever one of us announced a good tree worth turning around for.

Our Saucer Magnolia / Tulip Tree (Magnolia x soulangeana)

We didn't realize how many large Saucer Magnolia/Tulip Trees (Magnolia x soulangeana) were in town until this weekend.  There are some surprisingly large ones in our neighborhood that must be very old, since they are relatively slow growing trees.  Many of these trees were in back yards and we only saw their tops over fences because we were looking for them as we drove around town.

My favorite Daffodil is white with a rusty orange center. We have just a couple of these blooming in our corner garden.

Daffodils and Hyacinth have been blooming all over town for a couple of weeks and Tulips are just getting started.  We are excited about the unveiling of our new tulip colors this year.  It won't be long!

Our peach tree

Our multicolored Peach tree is blooming up a storm, as well.  The dual colors of this tree amazes everyone that looks at it.  I have a lot of close up (macro) pictures I will be sharing of many of these blooms over the next week.  Stay tuned!

spring blooms

Over the last couple of months I have been working on a project at work that had me computing the angle of the sun above the horizon across the US at all times of the day. Apparently the companies that take the high resolution overhead photographs for Google Earth and other mapping utilities require that the sun be at least 30 degrees above the horizon. When I started the project, about half of the US had a solar angle lower than 30 degrees all day long. Now the entire US reaches a solar angle greater than 30 degrees each day.

Kingdom Plantae has noticed! Here are some pictures of the bloomage occurring in my house and yard.

Several flowers I didn't get to until they had already wilted - including our crocuses.  I forgot to get a picture of our Flowering Quince bush when it was all blooms and no leaves, but here's what it looks like today:



Our Tulip tree (saucer magnolia) is starting to get big.  Since it has a lot of branching at ground level, I have been trying to thin it out a little each year so that it will be somewhat tree-like.  I think it is coming along pretty well.  I will probably have to remove a couple more branches this year.  Here's the gorgeous blooms:



We have 3 different color combinations of Daffodils in our back flower garden (all yellow, light yellow with dark yellow center, and white with orange tinted center).  Here's two of them:



We planted a flowering cherry tree 2 years ago and within a couple of months we noticed something horribly wrong with it.  Even though it was really just a 6 foot tall twig, it appeared to have been struck by lightning or diseased or something.  Half of it had turned black and ceased growing.  There is a clear line running straight down it's skinny trunk.  All new growth has come from the other half.  We've been debating whether to dig it up and move it to a less prominent location, since we had strategically positioned it to overhang our corner garden.  But this year it surprised us.  It has its first ever cheery blossom coming out and they look to be ready to open very soon!  Can you see them in the foreground?:



I received this flowering peach tree last year as a gift and it was covered in 2 colors of blooms when we planted it.  I'm glad to see it burst forth color again this year.  It has both magenta and light pink blooms intermixed on all the branches:



I overwintered 4 cyclamen indoors that had been very healthy all year outdoors.  They lost most of their leaves and went dormant during the winter, so I don't know how they will do with the transition.  Here is a new cyclamen that I just planted.  It also has 2 colors blooms:



These are the amaryllis that I wrote about in my previous post.  I have had them for several years now and they rebloomed for me this year.



I also wrote in my last post about getting my Christmas cactus to rebloom.  Well, I have a friend that just moved to Ireland for a couple of years and left her plants behind with me while she's gone.  Her Christmas (Easter?) cactus didn't bloom at the same time as mine did, but just surprised me with some blooms in the last couple of weeks:



This one's not really a bloom, but I was very happy to see this new little guy's foliage coming out this year.  I just planted this Japanese Maple tree last year and I wasn't sure that he was going to make it.



The tulips we planted in the backyard have bloomed a couple of weeks sooner each year than those in the front yard.  I will have to post again when our tulip-filled front flower bed is in bloom.  Here is the first of our backyard tulips:



We bought another azalea this year.  The price was irresistible ($2.48)!  Hopefully the ones we planted last year will bloom again for us.  They might need some fertilizer encouragement.  Here's our new one:



I was suprised to see these tiny blooms on my little leopard lily (an indoor plant).  The blooms actually have little purple stamens coming out of the white flowers.  I couldn't pick up the detail with my camera though.



I will post more blooms as they arrive.  I expect to have a BUNCH of tulips, some daylilies, irises and who knows what else!