I was up to Vancouver, BC today to photograph spring blooms at VanDusen and UBC Botanical Gardens. Spring is really late this year, but there were a number of plants in bloom on a gloriously pleasant day under a brilliant blue sky.

These delightful little species tulips were the star of my day, as I’d never seen them before. They were blooming in the alpine garden at UBC, in full sun and nestled against a nice warm rock. The flowers are similar in size to Tulipa tarda, which we have in our garden, but Tulipa urumiensis blossoms are solid yellow instead of having some white.

I found that Tulipa urumiensis is native to the shore of Lake Urumiya in Azarbaijan and along Lake Rezaiyeh in northwestern Iran. It’s apparently been in cultivation since the late 1920s, but I’ve never run across it. A page on Paghat’s Garden website has more information if you’re curious.

The photo was made with my 24-105mm all-purpose lens, with the camera on the tripod as usual. I softened the mid-day sun with a diffuser held as close to the flowers as possible. What you see here is straight from the camera, just downsized and converted to a JPEG for the web. Getting it right in the camera saves a whole lot of time later.

The magnolias in both gardens were putting on a great show, but quite difficult to photograph in many instances. The trees are getting to be good size and when they bloom on the upper branches it’s hard to isolate the tree from its surroundings. I didn’t try, choosing instead to just enjoy the beauty of the trees.

One of my favorite primroses, Primula denticulata or Drumstick Primrose, was in full bloom in both gardens. I bought one plant at the Seattle Flower & Garden Show back in February and planted it in our garden, but I haven’t seen any sign of flowers yet. Perhaps it takes a couple of years for them to get established. Either that or I planted it in too much shade and it’s not going to thrive.

Spring has been so slow this year that I haven’t done any garden photography since shooting in the snow on February 27. As the days get warmer and longer the plants should start to catch up and I’ll get busier.

In the past seven days we’ve seen our weather go from cold and snowy to warm and blustery. We had about 4 inches of snow on Wednesday, which lingered into Friday. Today it’s the warmest so far this year, 54° in the shade on the north side of the house. The morning’s blustery winds have died down, but not stopped.

Before it melted away from the garden on Friday afternoon, the first of our little dwarf iris, Iris reticulata, opened through the snow. Today, three of them are in bloom on our sunny corner, along with a veritable purple sea of crocus.

In wandering around the garden today I saw the first Erythronium leaves starting to poke up, as well as a tiny little Fritillaria leaf. Each day seems to being another discovery of a plant coming out of winter dormancy and starting once again to grow.

We’re greeted with the sweet smell of Sarcococca and Viburnum bodnatense ‘Dawn’ every time we come in or leave the house, thanks to having planted these to fragrant shrubs near the front door.

The daffodils have buds but it will still be at least a couple of weeks, and probably more,  before they start bringing their yellow cheerfulness to our corner.

It’s February, which means that it’s time for the Northwest Flower and Garden Show in Seattle. This is the 21st year for the show, and unless a new producer comes forward in the next 6 weeks or so it will be the last. Rumors say potential buyers are kicking the tires and checking under the hood, but no one’s opened their wallet just yet.  Let’s hope it continues.

I go to the show on Thursdays because northwest members of the Garden Writers Association get together that night. I carried a camera this year and worked around the crowds enjoying the display gardens to try to capture the feel of the show. Here’s what caught my eye …

The big trends in the gardens, which reflected the theme “Sustainable Spaces,” were a lot of use of regional natives (including cultivars) and outdoor living spaces. There were at least two gardens with green walls. The new plant introduction that drew my eye was a cultivar of our native vine maple (Acer circinatum) with very red bark called ‘Pacific Fire’. I asked whether it is resistant to the verticillium that is killing my ‘Sango Kaku’ Japanese Maple and was told that it is. I’ll have to see if I can find one at the nursery this spring. It’s being introduced by Monrovia Nurseries.

I always wander through the plant sales area, sometimes with a list in hand. This year I was just going to look and didn’t plan to buy anything. Sure, put a gardener and plant nut in an environment with hundreds of cool plants to take home and expect them to keep their VISA card in their pocket. Not going to happen. I was pretty good and only bought six little bags of roots and had a place for most of them in mind. From Far Reaches Farm I bought our native Trillium parviflorum, the low-growing Geranium orientalitibeticum, and the delightful early-blooming Primula dendiculata that I’ve been admiring at VanDusen for years.

Down the aisle at Sundquist Nursery I picked up the east coast native Trillium erectum and two west coast natives, Iris setosa and Lilium columbianum. When it warms up this afternoon I’ll get out in the garden and plant them all.

A note about the video slide show, which was created with Animoto. I photographed the gardens with my Canon 5D and a 24-105mm IS lens, hand held. A tripod just doesn’t work among the crowded display gardens. I set the camera to ISO 1600, which is surprisingly clean with regard to noise. Because the light is tungsten I set the camera for it, but still had to tweak the color a bit in Lightroom afterwards. The show lighting is theatrical, so contrast is rather high. Only if you spend a lot of money on landscape lighting will you ever see your own garden with light like the show gardens. A couple of the gardens had the lights on a day cycle so you got a feel of day and night in the garden. Not all visitors caught on to that idea, based on conversations I overheard.

The show runs through Sunday afternoon. For details visit the NWFGS website.

We may think of roses for Valentine’s Day, but why not the beautiful flowing bulb we call Amaryllis? This one, originally purchased for Christmas, took its sweet time coming into bloom so that it reached its glory in February.

Amaryllis is one of those plants, like geraniums, with confusing botanical names. The genus for the flower pictured above is Hippeastrum. There are many named cultivars, all hybrids as far as I can tell so the species name doesn’t get used. There is also a genus Amaryllis with a single species, Amaryllis belladonna, which is another flowering bulb.

Regardless of what you choose to call it, they’re beautiful flowers that come in a range of mostly reds and shades of white and pink.  I photographed this one in my studio against a white background lit with a blue gel over the light. Then I returned it to our dining table where we have been enjoying it for many days.

Notwithstanding the cold and spitting snow in Bellingham today, the earliest signs of spring are popping up in our garden.  I was out a couple of days ago to prune back a bunch of herbaceous material that had frozen back during our December cold snap. At the same time I noticed that the first of the early crocus were showing color.

This particular crocus was right along the sidewalk where it gets a little warmer from the sun hitting the pavement. We have hundreds of these early crocus scattered around the garden and most of them are just showing the tips of their foliage. It will be a while before the rest of them start blooming. We’ve also got snowdrops that are showing buds. Some years we’d have more things in bloom by now, but it’s been a colder winter than normal.

At least we’re not still buried under 10 inches of crusty old snow like a gardening friend in Coeur d’Alene reported a few days ago.

Last month I was down in Portland for the annual Garden Writers Association symposium. I took time on the morning afterward to spend a few hours exploring and photographing in the International Rose Test Garden. There are a huge number of roses in the garden, many of them looking very nice in late September. But one stood out to me that day — a shrub rose called ‘Raven’.

What struck me was the pattern of the petals. Neither too full nor a single, I liked the way the individual petals curved around and formed nice patterns in each blossom. The bushes were covered with lots of these very dark red velvety flowers.

I’ve never seen ‘Raven’ in the garden center, but it’s one I’d definitely seek out if I decide there’s room in our garden for a new rose.

Now that we’re almost to the end of October, the roses are about finished. But it’s nice to think back and remember some of the blooms from earlier in the season.