Found in Swiss Alps, Bernese Highlands, Jungfrau Region
Gentiana verna
22May2018
Enzian Facing North
Category Archives: Design
Hedge your bet
Prunus laurocerasus has become very popular as a hedge to secure privacy for people in the small gardens around the houses of the Bernese Highlands.
This plant is evergreen, takes to trimming, makes a nice tall, thick hedge, and has a light but pleasant fragrance in flower. Bees like it and birds like it.
But I have observed a huge amount of pollen gather on Lake Brienz while this plant is at and past its peak flowering.
Interesting no? Comments please?
600 m above sea level
Swiss Alps spring pastures
At 600 meters above sea level, early May in the Bernese Highlands, grassland pastures are full with first wild flowers. Imagine in the air, the fragrance of fresh green pasture spring.
Is that flower wild?
Or is it just having fun?
I had the joy of observing these two patches of flowers yesterday.
One is wild in the woods and the other is wild in the garden. Judging books by their covers, are we?
But someone has written that having a book in your pocket is like having a garden in your pocket. Then where do the wild flowers belong?
But anywhere you find them, they are a discovery pleasure of spring.
Wild in the garden
Wild in the woods
Is it just my imagination…
when I think a plant looks happy?
Or…my errant choice of words?
Clivia miniata
Catch
…if you can!
Mature Imagination and Youth
Wisteria floribunda gently stirs…youthful fragrance…mature strength.
Imagine
late April
Northern hemisphere
Spring moisture
17 degrees centigrade
cloudless sky
mid morning
faint breeze…
…just enough to stir these sweet fragrances
and you will have no doubt…
as you gently and deeply inhale…
A mature spring is about.
About dandelions
***Warning Hate Inside***
When I was a kid, my dad used to send me out in the front yard lawn, early spring, saying, “Get rid of the dandelions—and get out all the roots, too.”
Never, I never won that battle. Always more dandelions and always more vociferous exhortations from my dad.
Dandelion hate. Part of my childhood.
Well, I’ve grown up and now live in a new neighborhood.
And by golly did I have fun yesterday glorifying in the 500 meters above sea level central Switzerland landscape—dancing with the dandelions.
A sea, waves of dandelions in all their floriferous glory. Dancing away my hate.
Dandelions…no matter how seen,
Glowing with energy,
The light of the field.
I’m sure they have forgiven me.
The dandelion landscape…er…seascape.
Dancing dandelions
Dandelion bounce–it’s fun
Dandelion threesome
Dandelion dominatrix
Spring Snow Showers
Northern range of the Swiss Alps.
Last third of April–lots of spring flowers–violets going by–winter clothes put away–boom–spring snow showers.
Violas, violet, over oak.
Snow showers–normal April the locals say.
Snow flakes–dancing and jolly as if they are enjoying the joke.
Black Bird
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About this time of year, the early spring on the northern slope of the Swiss Alps in the Jungfrau Region–as the grasses first turn a full green, as the first wild primroses bloom, as the forsythia and magnolias bloom, the farmers bring out the sheep and cows–the bells and their random mystical ringing. At this same time a unique spring melody plays as the sparrows and the blackbirds greet the animals and the warmer sunny days.
If you try, you can almost add this photo plus the bird song to discover the briefest moment of fresh, sweet, spring air in the Swiss Alps.