Magnolia Week

I almost want to call week 2011/15 "moss week": the garden work has focussed on scratching a mountain of moss (about 400 litres of the stuff, hard packed in the bins) out of the lawn. The daffodils are looking fine on the street side and various cultivars of Forsythia are peaking. All along Stockflethweg, the big Crataegus are in glorious white flower (picture), which looks great now before the leaf canopy above them has re-established. The reference books say Crataegus monogyna never flowers till May, but the type that grows almost wild around here always blooms in April and is quickly spent . It certainly does not seem to be C. laevigata: this is the common European hawthorn. Very few branches of it are actually thorny, but the ones that are well defended have brutal splines about 5 centimetres long. The blossoms generally have six petals (pictured above). A Prunus on the other side of the street bursts into pink late in the week, but none of the Tulipa are up yet. Ribes sanguineum 'Atrorubens' has finally made it into bloom after long promise. Late in the week, our little Magnolia stellata comes into bloom. There are several of these in Stockflethweg, the biggest about 4 metres tall. Some tulip magnolias are blooming by the end of the week.