Spring emerges

Julia ♦ March 18, 2026 ♦ Leave a comment

I didn’t miss it! The plum tree in bloom at our York home, March 2019

“As a child I used to think that spring happened suddenly.  Now I know that spring emerges gradually, as new as dawn—and as old.” – June Masters Bacher

We had some unseasonably warm weather a few weeks back, and because of that (and OK, maybe because of what the ground hog said) I was expecting an early spring. But it’s just now starting to arrive. In past years, I’ve seen daffodils as early as February, but not this year. However, I’m happy to say that there now are definite signs of spring at our York home.

In early March I had noticed the plum tree just starting to bud. I was dismayed because I knew I would be away for 12 days and was afraid I’d miss it. But I didn’t! As you can see in the photo above, it is just now blooming, with none of the petals having dropped to the ground yet. Like many fruit trees, it has a short bloom time so I felt lucky that I caught it looking so pretty. Here’s what the flowers look like close up.

The delicate structure of a flower never fails to fascinate me.

The daffodils are blooming, too! Here’s a shot of some in the front yard. the ones around the trees and mailbox are the bright yellow monochromatic kind, and they haven’t appeared yet. I love any kind of daffodil.

These are always the first to appear each year.

Since it’s still cool, the last of the camellia blooms are still visible here and there, but clearly fading..

A few camellia blooms overlap with spring flowers– the best of both seasons.

These were growing near the ground, so I cut them to bring inside.

Indoors, they add such cheer to my days!

As Bacher says, spring emerges gradually…especially when one is waiting for it as eagerly as I always do. How about you? Are you seeing signs of spring– or in the southern hemisphere, of fall? Send us a seasonal snapshot– in words or an actual digital photo, if you can figure out how to upload it–and let’s welcome these blessings that are “as new as dawn– and as old.”

This post was first published seven years ago today. The blog is not designed for viewing on cell phones, but you can get a less distorted version of the photos if you click on the “view on blog” link at the top right of the screen. The original post, comments and photo are linked, along with two other related posts, at the individual post views. These links to related posts, and their thumbnail photos, do not appear in the blog feed; they are only visible when viewing the individual posts by clicking on each one. I have no idea why, nor do I know how they choose the related posts. That’s just the way WordPress does things.