Spring has Sprung - the Magnolias Bloom

This time of year in the area of China where I am visiting is lush with greenery.  Every tree and shrub seems to have more than its fair share of green foliage - it is a pretty awesome sight.  The bamboo that four years ago was just being established is now tall and thick. Spectacular.

One of the shrubs that always impressed me at this time is the Magnolia - these trees line the streets, and are featured in many gardens.

I am lucky in that there are two trees close to the appartment I am in, and I have been able to watch the buds form, and then the flowers open.  The flowers have a short life span.  One day they are buds, the next day they are in full bloom, and the next they are deteriorating.

I found a large historic Magnolia tree - but it was not easy to photograph it.

The Rose Garden

The miniature roses.

The rose garden (April and May)

When we came to Shaoxing at the end of February, the area had experienced a cold winter, and it had snowed here. One of the gardens near the apartment building that houses many of the foreign teachers, there was a garden that seemed to have a large number of dried sticks about 5 inches high in it. On closer inspection you could see it was a bed of roses.

I don't think in Australia we would have pruned them back so much - but things are different here.

The top photo was taken on April 17 th, as foliage was beginning to sprout on the plants. The second photo was taken just last week.

What a difference a few weeks makes in such a garden. Also on the school campus is an area near one of the other buildings where there is a bed of what I now discover is miniature roses and they too are in full bloom right now.

Beauty

I'm going to have to do a little research on this flower which is in my garden. I've had several of these plants that throw up wonderful strong long leaves that I sometimes use in flower arrangements. I think most folk grow them for the leaves, but they have a lovely flower.

One of my plants (which is in a pot) has never flowered but this one is in a garden and occasionally throws up this beautiful flower.

It is spring and lots of plants are flowering at the moment, and many native flowers are doing extremely well with blooms - perhaps because of the long dry that we have had.

I've not seen these in any florist, so I don't know how they go as a cut flower.