Duke's White Garden and Redbuds

Duke's White Garden and Redbuds
Originally uploaded by linfrye

The climatic zone maps used by gardeners splits by a half zone the city where I work and the town where I live. That half zone is significant enough that cherry trees and redbuds are in bright bloom an hour south of me, while mine, just a bit more north, are still tightly budded, and I won't see flowers for another 2 weeks.

Charles and I spent the afternoon at the NC Botanical Garden lecture yesterday presented by Richard Westmacott on African-American Gardens. A terrific lecture and even more engaging book. Temperatures were in the mid 30s, very cold to me, and the gardens there were still in their winter browns and siennas.

I longed to see some color and feel warmer temps, and so returned home to some photographs taken last March from Sarah Duke Gardens. This is a view of their 'White Garden" while the redbuds were in full bloom. Bulbs upon bulbs upon bulbs created white blankets of flowers all around the large earthenware ....

Just the kind of hopeful vision for a cold, still-wintery day...

Happy Monday!