TOO SOON GONE

 DICENTRA SPECTABILIS: Bleeding Heart
(Lady in a Bathtub)


Below, in text and photo, all the flowers and ephemerals that I mention in the poem as well as those blooming early spring to midspring here in eastern PA will be eventually featured.





Too soon gone, the Fairy Bells,                                          

the Shooting Stars of wonder;                                           
Then God sent forth the Trillium,                                      
Jacob's Ladder to climb, to ponder.                         
                                                                                    
                                                                                       
Up popped white Spring Beauty,,,,,,,,,,, 
Virginia Bluebells announced, "It's spring!"                
Primrose blushed across the lawn,
As Iris crested with the Sun.

Now mid-Spring, my Bleeding Heart fights

hard to heal, amid twisted Pachysandra.
Drifts of Daffodils deride, the Crocus calls,
"Join chorus," all you nodding Helebores!

No longer stated the Forget Me Knots,       
Dressed now with faded blues.
Tulips will never get their chance
All hope for them is gone.

My deer made it clear, when,
With one fell swoop he cut them off,
"just, like, that!"
Now, what is this, in it's place?
I've contracted Poison Ivy!  -suzie (she)

picture one (at right): remove a flower from a Bleeding Heart plant and turn upside down. This is known as "lady in a bathtub."

picture two (at right): carefully pull apart the pink petal giving you two bunny rabbits!!  Peel from center of what you have left and voila: Aladdin's slipper's and Cupids Heart! My mother-in-law Rosemary Ensslen taught me this; isn't that cool! Something to pass down from Grandma!!!

note: I've attempted to represent the color of each flower mentioned; when the color would not show up on the page I blocked it in with a contrasting color. Below are those mentioned in the poem as well as other spring ephemerals and flowers blooming  in my gardens this time of year: virginia bluebells, rue anemone, dutchmen's breeches, hepatica, 
phlox, arum,  allium, dogtooth violet, wild ginger, bloodroot,
trout lily, celandine poppy, shootingstar.  Water garden: water hawthorne

1) MERTENSIA virginianica: Virginia Bluebells: also known as cowslip. (ephemeral)  Below: Mertensia with Doronicum orientale (leopard's bane) and Lily of the Valley on the way, Ligularia and White woodland Phlox.








 





2) Sessile Bellwort: Fairy Bells (to right: chose a picture from 2009 that shows the plant not en masse. Later putting up how it has multiplied!!!!






Hellebores (below) (to be continued) Need to show en masse as well. These need to be planted along a stone wall as the flowers nod their heads down and are bettered displayed this way.