the real thing

Between drizzling mizzling rains today, I paddled out and got a few pictures of Pulmonaria for you. These pictures accurately show how the colors pop up through the fallen leaves of last Autumn.

The largest leaves are red oak, which gives you an idea of the size of the plants.

And in this picture, you can see deep pink buds, and several flowers in the process of turning from pink to blue. This isn't the exact stem I painted, but it could have been.

I hadn't seen this plant until a kind gardener in town gave me some from her own garden. It was long past blooming, and when it came up the following year I did not know what it was, so the flowers were a big surprise. I posted a picture here on the blog  and several readers identified it for me.

Rereading that old blog post tonight also confirmed my feeling the bloodroot is usually up first.

Speaking of which, here is the bloodroot today: all tucked in against the cold.

Plants are simply amazing, aren't they?

~~~~~

bits of color

This year, the Pulmonaria began to bloom a full week before the bloodroot. It was so refreshing to suddenly see a bit of pink and blue amidst the many shades of brown in the leaf litter still covering most of the gardens.

The plants are only a few inches tall but they certainly have a lot going on in the Color Department. In addition to the multi-toned stems and prettily mottled leaves, the flowers begin to bloom in pink, then shift to a lavender blue!

~~~~~