People. There’s stuff blooming in the bleeding middle of January. Either the plants are very confused, or this bush is very brave.
Here ’tis, lustily blooming on in the middle of a deep freeze. This was taken on the same day I went about looking at needle ice and leaves encased in ice. And right across the street from those frozen leaves, here’s this bush, acting like it was a warm spring day rather than the kind of weather that could freeze the toes off a sled dog.
It doesn’t even have the decency to look chilled. Chill, perhaps. Unfussed. Some of the plants here don’t seem to understand what winter is, or what a typical plant is supposed to do during it. Then again, it could be global warming.
This one has a fetching blue berry appearing here and there amongst the thick green foliage and the pink buds.
So this is obviously some sort of cultivated bush, likely imported from somewhere or other, and plunked down in an office park, where it happily blooms in the middle of winter. What is this brave plant, my darlings?
I feel like we’ve seen something similar before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhaphiolepis
A viburnum, actually. My guess. Either this one…
…this one…
… or this one.
This was a tough one, because most of my potential shrub search engines would not recognize the collection of characteristics I was trying to plug in (pink flowers, blue berries, red stems, green and red/purple leaves etc.). But maybe my google-fu is just off today.
Viburnum tinus, common as dirt because it is so adaptable. ‘Spring Bouquet’ has become the most popular variety formits compactness and floriferousness.
Also, it turns out its blooming season is during the winter. So… :) Hardy, indeed. Bred for the cold!
Yeah, I like to design gardens with their winter look as the primary attraction. Spring is oversexed and opulent with no trying; summer’s langour is best savored in shady green; autumn color welcomes the first rains, but it is winter that rejuvinates me. . Twigs and bark are a respite from the insistent clamor of the rest of the year. Then the Magnolias start in, with hosts of emerging bulbs beneath, and it all starts in again. I do live on the mild, left coast, where winter is something like the real spring.