Winterthur, Delaware, in late March.
Legacy of Henry Francis du Pont, 1880-1969, American
And I was alive in the blizzard of the blossoming pear. Myself I stood in the storm of the bird-cherry tree.
It was all leaflife and starshower, unerring, self-shattering power
And it was all aimed at me.
What is this dire delight flowering fleeing always earth?
What is being? What is truth?
Blossoms rupture and rapture the air,
All hover and hammer,
Time intensified and time intolerable, sweetness raveling rot.
It is now. It is not.
May 4, 1937
Osip Mandelstam born, Warsaw, 1891. He died in December 1938 in a transit camp the second time he was arrested in a Stalin purge. This was his last known poem.
It is the empire of blues when you enter the park at Winterthur in late March .
Siberian squill facing Korean forsythia
Siberian squill
Italian windflower
Glory-of-the-snow
Spring crocus
Virginia bluebell
Virginia bluebell
Rhodendrons begin to bloom in late March in Winterthur and continue until mid-Autumn
A narrow road separates the blues from the yellow-pinks
And there, on the other side, yellow spike winterhazel (Corylopsis spicata), Korean rhododendron, and Cherry prinsepia (Prinsepia sinenis)
Yellow spike winterhazel
Prinsepia sinensis in front of a yellow winterhazel
Korean rhododendron and other cultivars in varying shades of pink are in bloom from mid-March
Through the dense edge of Korean rhododendron bushes, you see a paler screen of pink.
Walking around the rhododendron bushes where they form an edge to the yellows, you raise your eyes.
The magnificence of an approaching mature cherry tree is just over the hill.
You find a portal between two rhododendron bushes and a white manchu cherry tree is before you…..
Dire delight flowering, fleeing always earth. Most precious earth.
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Really, what a beautiful place!
It is, Louis.
Everything is closed – public parks and private gardens – but not Winterthur. So lucky we are!
Sarah
I can’t wait for color here in upstate New York. I like the picture with the robin!
I’m sure you are ready.
Of our native plants here around Philly, nothing blooms this early. Winterthur is blooming only because – with rare exceptions, these are not native plants. We are still waiting for our natives!
Thanks for looking. Sarah