On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
If you’re not walking alone, it would be a great time to play “I Spy”. I spy something red, something yellow, something purple, something white, something orange! The white azalea is stunning, and the Spanish Bluebells are my favorites. You’re in Virginia, so I have to ask – where are the Virginia Bluebells? ~WaterGirl
Redshift
I’ve been taking walks around the neighborhood, watching the progression of spring, and occasionally taking pictures. Three weeks ago, it was tulips and cherry trees everywhere, bright and gorgeous.
This week the tulips were all gone. Azaleas in a variety of colors were in full bloom. Dogwoods were at various stages, some just getting started, some full and spectacular, some past their prime. There were also lovely buttercups, bluebells (I think) and other wildflowers all over, and even a few roses and iris (not pictured.)
Sorry for the lazy writing, but I’ll let the pics do the talking. :-)
JPL
Tulips are a favorite of mine, but they don’t do well where I live. What beautiful colors.
Mary G
Tulips! Love them. I tried buying bulbs in November to plant after keeping them in the freezer for a couple of months, but they’d bloom for two minutes until an April heat wave burnt them up.
Baud
Read that as “Blueballs” and was confused.
Pretty pictures.
WaterGirl
@Baud: That would be confusing!
Amir Khalid
Wow. Pwetty fwowers is pwetty.
WaterGirl
@Amir Khalid: You’re here early! (early for us)
Rob
It’s nice to see those flowers.
debbie
Beautiful! I have stalked spring every year for the 10+ years I’ve lived in this neighborhood. The homeowners take great pride in their yards and it shows. Most of the best plantings have been there longer than the occupants. I hate it when a new owner moves in and rips stuff out. It should be a crime.
SkyBluePink
what a lovely neighborhood! Thanks for the pics.
arrieve
I love tulips! And I’ve missed being able to see the cherry trees in Central Park this year — it’s too far to walk with a mask, and walking is the only way I’ll move around NY for the foreseeable future.
Pragmatic Idealist
Ha, I’m a guy, saw nothing but the poorly constructed box for a minute, then noticed flowers.
TomatoQueen
About Virginia bluebells: https://wimastergardener.org/article/virginia-bluebells-mertensia-virginica/ like many woodland natives, an ephemeral and a bit tricky, but with a large range and worthy of the shade garden if you have one.
Ruckus
From the BBC tweet above.
A gradual opening will cause more infections. A rapid uncontrolled opening will cause massively more infections. Either will cause deaths.
There is no way to beat this, it’s not difficult to understand that the more exposure will cause more illness. The world has been here before, we’ve seen what happens. A large percentage of the population has little memory of the world 6 or 7 decades ago, where several diseases that weren’t as deadly as this one were widespread and very contagious. Polio, measles, etc. The only thing that helped was the population wasn’t as exposed to as much of the rest of the population.
The only way to slow this down is space from each other.
The only way to stop it is a vaccine.
It’s not a secret, it’s not difficult to understand, well OK it appears it might be difficult for a segment of the population to understand, but this is not the only thing that segment has no understanding of.
low-tech cyclist
What part of northern Virginia, Redshift? I grew up in the Mt. Vernon area, still have family scattered across NoVa, and live not that far away – in MD, maybe 40 minutes from the Wilson Bridge.
I’d say the houses look familiar, but that style of construction is widespread in older neighborhoods across the DC suburbs, so chances are good that I’ve never seen these particular houses before. Houses in my sister’s neighborhood in Rockville look a lot like that.
WaterGirl
@TomatoQueen: Virginia bluebells
Redshift
Thanks, everyone!
This bluebell was just in someone’s front yard, though most of the ones I saw were in a wooded part of the neighborhood near a stream. Last spring I was riding my bike in a nearby park, and came to an area where the ground was just carpeted with little yellow flowers. I researched them a bit and found that they were spring ephemerals, wildflowers that bloom after the weather is warm but before the trees get their full foliage, so there’s more sun on the forest floor. I’d never happened to be there at the right time before.
Also, I looked back at my pictures from last year (taking pictures on my phone is how I remember when things happened), and the tulips bloomed about a month earlier this year. Probably because we had a warmer and wetter winter, I’m guessing, but I found it interesting.
Redshift
@low-tech cyclist: I’m between the west end of Alexandria and Springfield, so not far from Mount Vernon. The style of houses does seem to be pretty common across the region.
Luthe
@Redshift: *waves from Landmark
Shana
@debbie: I think new owners should have to live in a house for a full year to see how all the plants etc. work before they’re allowed to pull anything out.
When we moved to our house in NoVA over 25 years ago we put in about 200 tulip bulbs in a bed next to the driveway. Next spring we got one tulip. The squirrels and deer ate all the others. I learned why there are so many daffodils in our area. It’s beautiful backing onto a wooded ravine but forget about trying to grow veggies.
J R in WV
Sweet pics of wonderful common blooming plants in an ordinary neighborhood.
Good for you!! Thanks for sharing the pretty fleurs…
We do have a big clump of BlueBells in the back yard. Pretty while they last, too.