The Ides of April

    By the middle of April, the beauty pageant is in full swing.  In the shady areas the blue and pink anemones are starting to blanket the ground.  I need to add some red ones for next spring.  They are quite the propagators.  Three cheers for evasive flowers.  The three cousins are starting to enrich the shade as well.  The red and white bleeding hearts are beginning to bloom--God has such an imagination.  Their wild cousins the Dutchman's Breeches have already been carpeting the shade area under the trees.  And the red and pinkish corydalis are abloom as well.  I love their little pipe like flowers.  The yellow and blue varieties come a little bit later.  God can even make the shady areas of life resonate with beauty, can't He?
    The star of the April proceedings are the daffodils--yellows, whites, a touch of pink, even touches of orange are everywhere, and one variety even has a little green on the flower.  The beds are blooming, the pond is surrounded, the trees have their bouquets, and even the wild area cannot keep the indomitable daffodil from trumpeting to the sky.  No matter how thick the growth, they push their way through.  Beauty must triumph.  Please pass the tiaras for the daffodils.
    The two flowers competing for the best supporting actress role--excuse the change of metaphors--are the tulips and the hyacinth.  It's a toss up--too close to call.  The hyacinth come in brilliant colors, and they smell delicious.  There should be a picture of hyacinth next to the word aromatic in the dictionary.  They, too, are tough and bloom even in the wild area.  The most evasive--in a good way--are the grape hyacinth--which enigmatically come in white and pink as well as "grape."  They are quite small--see the picture in the last fb album--but they multiply like crazy.  They are particularly picturesque when they surround a bouquet of daffodils--yellows and whites encased in a purple border.  Stunning in my opinion.
     The tulips are beautiful as well--reds, oranges, yellows, whites, greens, bi-colors.  This time of year it's good "to be in Dutch."  The only complaint I have with tulips is that they wimp out after a couple of years and quit blooming or in some cases quit coming up at all.  Of course, I then get to buy some more to plant!  I guess I shouldn't complain.  Both the daffodils and tulips should still be around when the iris start to make their appearance.  I can hear them now whispering in the beds--"Where have you been?  What took you so long?  You've missed April."
     Anyway if you were to join me on my walk today, the color spectrum is full and gorgeous.  Hundreds of daffodils, a few dozen hyacinth, a few dozen tulips, a spattering of anemone, bleeding hearts, corydalis, and Dutch Breeches.  God knows how to do a landscape!  It's too bad Brutus and the gang didn't wait until the Ides of April to do in Julius.  With all the beauty around, he might have died a happier man. =)