Pink Weigela in bloom

"Minuet" weigela has beautiful pink colored blooms.

Red Weigela in bloom

Red Prince Weigela blooms in springtime. It has amazing trumpet shaped flowers bright red in color.

Lilacs in Bloom

Lilacs usually bloom with the arrival of spring. Since, Chicago weather cannot be co-related to what the calender says, this plant blooms when the climate is more like spring with frequent rains.

The blooms have a mesmerizing fragrance. The fragrance radiates upto 15 feet radius with the gentle breeze.

New growths in Evergreens

It is amazing to see that every tree has a different growth pattern. Evergreens start their growth as small brown cones which break open to release the new needles (otherwise leaves). The new growths have a very lively fresh color & shiney in appearance.

Challenges of our Oak tree

The Oak tree in our yard is one of our favorite trees. It was quite tall while we planted it. So, it really needed a long support post & some tied support to keep up with the winds. Usually, it is suggested that the trees should be trained without much supports when it is medium sized.

We removed its supports the next year after planting. During one of the worst windy days, we found our tree totally bend to one side & was literally lying to the ground. This tree has nice strong arched branches which made the top very heavy. We pretty much lost hope of the tree making its way back.

But, we did not want to give up & wanted to give the tree another chance for survival. We supported the tree in all the possible ways we could. Sometimes it would just work for 2-3 days & the tree would be back to ground. But, one kind of supporting really helped & made the tree stand tall.

The following year, we removed the support again to see if the tree can stand on its own. This time it was good for couple of days & then again one of the windy days made it to bend over. But, the good sign was it was bending only due to weight & was able to hold it back.

The windy days were really tough to this tree. This time we supported the tree only on one side. All the injuires that happened to the bark with all bending is slowly recovering. After all that happened to this tree, it is trying its best to hold its weight & stand tall. We love the gracefullness it adds to the yard. We love to see the birds & the squirrels enjoying this tree.

Apart from all this, this tree looks beautiful when new growths start appearing.

Crabapples & Flowering Pears

It was officially Spring two months back. But, Chicago weather currently seems to be into the Spring mode. This climate is simply amazing. The temperatures are perfect ranging from 60-65 degree F, slightly foggy, pleasant rains, lush green landscapes and trees set in colorful blooms everywhere.

Crabapples & Flowering pears are the trees dominating the landscape with its beautiful blooms at this time. We have three "Sugar Tyme" crabapples of which two of them failed to bloom this year. After doing some research I found out, it is possible that the flower buds might get affected if there is a bad winter & lot of temperature fluctuations. This is how the tree looked last year.

We have three "Chanticleer" flowering pears in our yard. All of them had perfect blooms. One was planted the previous year(2007) & the other two planted last year(2008). This tree looks very beautiful once it grows to a decent size (still couple more years for our trees to reach that size :-)).

"Sugar Thyme" crabapple with its pink buds, all set to bloom...

Closeup of the flower branch with the slgithly opened blooms...

Closeup of a single bloom....with some pink buds in the background...

"Sugar Tyme" Crabapple Blooms which turned white in color...once fully opened...

"Chantincleer" flowering pear blooms...

"Chantincleer" flowering pear blooms...closeup view...

Charming "Tina" Crabapple

Crabapples come in a variety of sizes. There is a tree for every area of your garden. " Tina" crabapple is a minature tree version for small spaces. This tree was added to the lamp post area last year.

This year this tree has added an extra charm to that area. It had tons & tons of white blooms which were approximately 1/2" in size. The buds were dark pink in color.

"Tina" crabapple when all set with buds...Closeup view of the pink buds...
Tree in bloom...
View of tree from the other side...
Entire tree set in white blooms...
Closeup view of a single flower branch....
Closeup view of the flowers.....