Springing

We made our first visit to the Jardin Botanique this year, and to paraphrase William Gibson: spring has arrived, it’s just not even distributed. (As always, click on pictures to see ’em biggish).

The grand entryway is flanked with fields of tulips, but they’re not showy … yet. Further inside, a few have opened.

But the big drama near the entrance is a magnolia in full bloom. There was a queue for people wanting to have their portraits taken with it or to get flower-filled selfies. Spoiler alert: the tree is magnificent, but even more spectacularity awaits further inside the gardens.

Across from the demonstration gardens, there’s a patch with a lot of fruit trees. They’re flowering as effusively as the magnolia, but it’s harder to get a good selfie with them.

I may not have a selfie with the fruit trees, but I was able to indulge in one of my many vices — an insistence on putting the Montreal Tower into as many picture backgrounds as possible.

It’s not just trees blooming. There are still a few last irises, different pasqueflowers, and pretty little clusters of grape hyacinth and daffodils.

Over by the ponds, there was a surreal thrumming noise that we assumed were the frogs. There were plenty of birds around too.

But, as per the spoilers mentioned above, the stars of the show for this week were the magnolias. They seemed to be in peak profusion.

Did I take far too many pictures? Oh, you know I did!

One of the pleasures of the garden is seeing it transform from week to week. I expect the magnolias will still be blooming next week, but who will be joining them?

Tune in here to find out!