May blossom

“ In some parts it is a general favourite, and may be seen in almost every garden; such patronage is well merited, as it not only enlivens the garden at a dead season, but it heralds spring time and furnishes long sprigs of wallflower-scented blossom as cut bloom, which shows to advantage by gaslight. ”

“ The hour of the rose and the honeysuckle will come, the hour of the swallow hawking the grey gnat above the lilied stream, the hour when the voice of the cuckoo floats through ancient woods rejoicing in their green youth, that voice which has in it the magic of all springs, the eternal cry of the renewal of delight.
True, one may as yet more universally see the feet of Spring, or the blossom-touch of her hands, in the meadows and by the shores, than in the woods. She passes by the hedgerows or along the pastures, and her trail has the sheen of gold. ”

“ We naturally wonder what the plants are, but it may be many years before our curiosity is satisfied. Suddenly some spring we find them sending up tall blossom-shafts, crowned with great airy plumes of pure-white flowers, fully worthy of our long and patient waiting. ”

“ Opulent is every bush, though its blossoming may be secret. In colors beloved of kings, the velvet, minutely perfect iris commands the garden path. Beside it in despair the old-time bleeding-heart laments, and the bells of the valley lily hang, chiming fragrance. Impatient climb the red-stalked peonies. The currant is in green but pleadingly sweet blossom.
High, thick grass and clover in May fields are only the setting for the dazzling buttercup, who shakes the dews from her closed petals before daybreak and folds them prayerfully at about the time the birds turn home. ”

“ Blossoms of these, in every variety of hue—​white, blue, and crimson—​well-nigh everywhere adorn the surface of the water; rooted below they project their long stalks and leaves through the apertures, like fishes, in the winter, to catch the air through holes in the ice. Should any one make a grasp at a blossom and fail to make good his hold, it may happen that the entire plant will make an elastic rebound and disappear beneath the grass. ”

“ The bud disappears when the blossom breaks through, and we might say that the former is refuted by the latter; in the same way when the fruit comes, the blossom may be explained to be a false form of the plant's existence, for the fruit appears as its true nature in place of the blossom. These stages are not merely differentiated; they supplant one another as being incompatible with one another. ”

“ Fanny herself appears, as he has described her at their first meeting, an absolute minx. And presently he contrives to slip stealthily away, and seats himself in some quiet chamber, alone with the darkness and the May-scents of leaf and blossom. "I hope I shall never marry," he groans once more; "the roaring wind is my wife, and the stars through the window-panes are my children: the mighty abstract idea of Beauty I have in all things, stifles the more divided and minute domestic happiness. I do not live in this world alone, but in a thousand worlds. ”

“ Not a scowling, sullen endurance, not a despairing, hand-dropping resignation, but a heart cheerfulness that holds on to every leaf, and twig, and flower, and bravely smiles and keeps green when frozen to the very heart, knowing that the winter is but for a season, and that the sunshine and bird singings shall return, and the last year's dry flower stalk give place to the risen, glorified flower. ”

“ Their great balls of blossom change from a pale yellow green to bright blue, brighter almost than the sky above, and as they fade, they turn to rosy purple, and back again to a dull green, clinging with ungraceful tenacity to life, as though loth or afraid to die, preferring to rot on their stem rather than drop untimely—unlike the blossoms of spring, ever ready to depart life at the call of nature. ”

“ Certain flowers are now in bloom, but you never find a mourning cloak or a hunter, a question mark or a painted lady fluttering about them. The bees are in the willow blooms and the alder catkins after pollen. The maples are in bloom. You can find hepaticas and violets, chickweed, crocus, snowdrop, and, I dare say, dandelions in blossom, and almost every day some new shrub{147} or shy herb sends perfumed invitation out on the messenger winds. ”

“ Now, after ten years of high living, it has become an illustrious shrub; and to sit in the old garden in the May-time while the shadows and sunshine dance together on the lawn and vernal odors sweeten all the air, watching the long pink wreaths of flowering almond sway in the south wind, is to lend one's self to the divine gladness of spring, and know that simple joy in living, that is the birthright of all God's creatures in this—His beautiful and perfect—world. ”

“ Whether manifesting itself in the inconspicuous flower upon the tree or in the equally unassuming inflorescence of the vegetable, or unfurling petals of satin or gauze of brilliant hue and marvelous beauty, the blossom is the origin of most that is useful or beautiful in the organic world about us. Strip the world of its blossoms, and the higher forms of life must come to a speedy termination. ”

“ What a joy in being and moving! Men are at work in gardens; and in the air there is an odor of the fresh earth. The leaf-buds begin to swell and blush. The white blossoms of the cherry hang upon the boughs like snow-flakes; and ere long our next-door neighbours will be completely hidden from us by the dense green foliage. The May-flowers open their soft blue eyes. Children are let loose in the fields and gardens. ”

“ When this tree opens its buds, we know that its kindred of the hill country will also be decked, and it is our time to go forth, for here the Maying is the festival of the Apple Blossoms, and the blushing snow of it veils the grim gray hills, and brocades the silken emerald of the grassy lowlands every May as completely as the gold and purple of golden-rod and aster mantle the land in autumn.
People make journeys to the Orient to see the Festival of Fruit Blossoms, where many of the trees enclosed in gardens are shown with suggestion both of art and artifice ”

“ When you came up profusely, one can hardly believe
That blossoms like these, such wee little mites
Could produce in my garden such wonderful sights.
When once you are planted when Spring comes around,
Multiplied by hundreds you’d peep through the ground;
Awaiting the heat, the Sun and the rain
In the sweet early summer to grow lovely again.
You come every year, you make my heart glad
With such beautiful blossoms, how can I be sad?
The humming bird loves you, they come every day
And drink of your nectar, so softly and gay.{8} ”

“ There are many flowers, which in the early morn, seem to possess little interest or beauty, for their bloom is closed; but when the sun gets up, and they feel its genial heat, the leaf expands, and the blossom opens, sweet in its fragrance, and lovely in its colouring and form. ”

“ We do not hesitate to pronounce it the finest Rose in existence for summer blooming, as it will make a large growth and is loaded with its glorious blossoms from May until November. For winter blooming it has no equal in beauty or profusion. Just the Rose to train up in a conservatory or bay-window, where its exquisite blossoms will show to wonderful advantage every day, summer or winter. Quite hardy, and will produce more flowers than a dozen ordinary Roses. ”

“ Why, then, should autumn tinge our thoughts with sadness. We fade as the leaf, and the leaf fades only to revivify. Though it fall, it shall rise again. Does the bud fear to become a blossom, or the blossom shudder as it swells into fruit ”

“ You can grow such without expense or trouble in your little parterre. The charming bushes of dwarf shrubs, and large border flowers, which bloom in May, must have charms for you as for all of us, and these too you may have in perfection; while the roses of June and July, the lilies of August, and the grand gladiolus of the autumn, will all be perfectly at home in your borders, as will every good and beautiful flower garden plant. ”

“ About the month of May they begin to flower in these parts, and then their beauty rivals that of most of the known trees in nature: the flowers are innumerable, and sit in great bunches. Before they open, they have a fine red colour, but as they are expanded, the sun bleaches them, so that some are quite white; many preserve the colour of roses. ”

“ After the blossom season is over, the plant puts forth its thick foliage, and so flavors the air from earliest spring till near midwinter, with the sweet aroma which belongs to both leaf and flower. Though not evergreen, the dried leaves often cling to the bushes until the new growth displaces them. ”

“ Can words describe the fragrance of the very breath of spring--that delicious commingling of the perfume of arbutus, the odor of pines, and the snow-soaked soil just warming into life? Those who know the flower only as it is sold in the city streets, tied with wet, dirty string into tight bunches, withered and forlorn, can have little idea of the joy of finding the pink, pearly blossoms freshly opened among the withered leaves of oak and chestnut, moss and pine needles in which they nestle close to the cold earth in the leafless, windy northern forest. ”

“ By which we see each bough bend white with fruit,
Each bush with bloom, in snow commemorative.
HOAR-FROST
The frail eidolons of all blossoms Spring,
Year after year, about the forest tossed,
The magic touch of the enchanter, Frost,
Back from the Heaven of the Flow'rs doth bring;
Each branch and bush in silence visiting
With phantom beauty of its blooms long lost:
Each dead weed bends, white-haunted of its ghost,
Each dead flower stands ghostly with blossoming.
This is the wonder-legend Nature tells
To the gray moon and mist a winter's night ”

“ The cherry blossom is Spring, the iris and the wistaria; but, as each of these has its own season, the gods sent you to keep green our hope of Spring.
I do not say I love you, rather I fear you; you are too dignified; you blossom alone on the branches with no green leaves to bear you company. I do not call you beautiful; your scent is too keen, your petals too stiff. No one will ever sing or dance beneath your boughs. ”

“ Beneath the shade of deciduous trees there are many plants which will live healthy and flowery lives. In the spring we have for such situations the great array of bulbs, together with many of the Primroses, Sweet Woodruff, Hepaticas, Hellebores, Fair maids of France, Doronicums, and other early bloomers; and, even when the trees are in full leaf, we may enjoy, if the soil be but properly prepared, such pleasant flowers as those of the Martagon Lily and Lilium speciosum, Campanulas, both dwarf and tall, Foxgloves, Knotweeds, and Columbines ”

“ All about me the things of Nature are still in the mystical, subtile tenderness of their young, green growth. The golden days of autumn are full of their own beauty. The grey days of winter’s mist and fog have theirs, but there is something in the tender blue days of the rainy springtime that sets the heart apraise, and brings out as nothing else can, the meanings of leaf and bud, of flower and tree. ”

“ How delightful in the early spring, after the dull and tedious time of winter, when the frosts disappear and the sunshine warms the earth and waters, to wander forth by some clear stream, to see the leaf bursting from the purple bud, to scent the odours of the bank perfumed by the violet, and enamelled, as it were, with the primrose and the daisy; to wander upon the fresh turf below the shade of trees, whose bright blossoms are filled with the music of the bee ”

“ Knowing, as we do, every plant and its place,—having taken just pride in its summer bloom,—having preserved this by cares and trimmings and proppings to a picturesque and florid autumn, though wild-flowers have long been shrivelled and shapeless,—having tidied it up and put a little something comforting round it when bloom and outline were absolutely no more: what must we feel when we first detect the ruddy young shoots of our favourite pæonies, or perceive that the brown old hepaticas have become green and young again and are full of flower-buds? ”

“ And thus did the two in happiness, among red bean-blossoms, red May-chafers, before the red of the twilight burning lower and lower on the horizon, walk to and fro in the garden; and turn always with a smile as they approached the head of the ancient gardeneress, standing like a window-bust through the little lattice, which opened in the bottom of a larger one. ”

“ No, The Garden, You, and I know that hardy plants, native and acclimated, may be had in bloom from hepatica time until ice crowns the last button chrysanthemum and chance pansy, but to have every bed in continuous bloom all the season is not for us, any more than it is to be expected that every individual plant in a row should survive the frost upheavals and thaws of winter. ”

“ The Red Men waited for the May Moon to wax full and the truce flowers of the white dogwood to signal frost’s surrender from the wood edges before they planted their maize. We wait for the first blooming of an apple tree to tell us that the springtide is at its height. ”

“ I find it difficult to share the almost universal admiration that it awakens when in flower, as its beauty is much marred by the tenacious habit of its dead blossoms, which cling to life to the bitter end, and [129] spoil all the freshness of the newly developed blossoms. The balls of blossom, in shape reminding one of huge guelder roses, start by being a greenish-white, which gradually turns to a deep dull pink, and in death to a most unsightly brown. Astrapæa viscaria attains to the size of a large tree, and in April bears a burden of pink blossoms, also in round balls ”