Flowering Crab

This is indeed one of the most beautiful trees (in my humble opinion) that I have ever seen! Flowering Crab trees have the most amazing, amazing, amazing blossoms. On top of them being beautiful there is an amazing abundance of blossoms. Only some of them are fully open right now and I can't wait to see it in a few days! Plus, they smell amazing...even the bees think so!

I love the dark pink of the tree in my yard, but the white one at my sister's house has it's own beauty! I may share some pictures of that one in the coming days.

This tree is actually very special too. My step father's grandma was the originator of this special tree. On the family homestead lies the original, but everyone has been able to take branches from it and root it and then plant it elsewhere...such as my very own yard. My step father had tried planting one in his yard at the same time as mine 6 years ago...can you beleive that it started as a twig just 6 years ago? In any case their tree didn't survive, but mine has grown in amazing proportions. Yeah, before you know it they may be back to try a branch from mine to grow one for themselves.

Enjoy the lovely colors though of the one in my yard.

...more from Mother's Day

I wanted to revist a few more pics I had taken on Mother's Day in my search for color. Mother's Day started off cloudy and cold and I was pretty sure it would be the first Mother's Day in 10 years that wasn't gonig to turn out...well, the Lord provided yet another beautiful day. By the time the morning had come to an end it was sunny, warm and beautiful!

There was also plenty of pretty flowers to take pictures of since my mother works in a greenhouse and had brought some to share with us. Aren't these just amazing...the many shades of pink in one little flower amazing me!

I had fun experimenting with family pictures and wanted to share this one of my daughter Clarisse. It was exciting to use this old red bed frame with her photoshoot. I think that is what is enjoyable with photography is that anything can be turned into a wonderful tool for brightening up a photo.

I also grabbed this abstact photo of a wind mill in my parents back yard. I love how the bright and detailed it is with the blue back drop from the wonderful sky that day.

Yeah, I hope you enjoyed Mother's day as much as I did!

Mother's Day and Amazing Color

Have you noticed how quickly things are changing here in Minnesota? Yep, the leaves are coming and the early flowers are here! I love to see all the beautiful colors bursting forth now. Each week I am sure we will see new wonderful colors coming that will need to be documented :)!

These pictures were taken at my mother-in-law's home. She has definitely given a lot of thought over the years on what to plant so that she can enjoy wonderful, beautiful, amazing color ALL summer long. Of course, I think she did it all for me so I would have them to take pictures of, but that really is a little selfish now isn't it?

What about you? What have you planted in your yard that has inspired your passion for color?

Still in pursuit of spring!

I was outside cleaning out my flower beds and finding the little signs of spring popping out of the ground. It puts such a smile on my face to see to see the fresh plants growing! I have always loved Hostas too and was excited to see them growing up. We haven't had much rain here in my town (once in the past 2 weeks) so the grass is just now starting to green up.

I think another wonderful thing about plants and trees are that not all things are indeed created equal. I have a number of shrubs that have red or burgundy colored leaves (my maple tree and ninebark shrub are included with this). It is so wonderful to have many different colors to appreciate outside! This one above is the new buds for my Flowering Crab Tree. I can't wait until she is in full bloom within the next few weeks!

The Great Outdoors

I beleive that I am going to have to keep going back to the new life growing up around us this spring for color inspiration. I know that there is till lots and lots of drab all over, BUT, if you look really closely you can find little sprouts on the trees and some green grass coming in too....look, really look, it is worth it!

I have also noticed that not only is the grass growing in, but there is green moss growing on the trees, even the dead ones. It is fun to try and capture color now as spring is drifting in. I think we would have even more, but the April showers haven't really arrived yet. We keep being threatened with rain, but I have yet to see a shower arive.

So in the mean time, I will enjoy the sprouts of grass that are in the property behind us and the moss on the trees on the walking path near us. I am thankful that we have some outdoors to enjoy while we wait for summer to come!

Easter Day Outside Color

In the Puruit of Color...

Okay, Minnesota has far from sprouted color from every corner. In fact the ground is still very, very brown and the clouds still like to come and block out our precious sun. But in spite of the drabness that Minnesota brings, I have committed to finding some color from every area. Here are my finds from yesterday.

The best sign we found though was this little peonies plant that was starting to grow. I was surprised that it was sprouting up and was indeed the only thing sprouting in my mother in law's yard. The promise of spring was proven by the tiny green leaves amongst all the brown. Yeah!