Daffodils and Pansies

The Chicago Botanic Gardens had much more than tulips for spring, but more than 5,000

different flowers in 26 different gardens.  Doing even minimal justice to the Gardens takes

four hours and rewards you with constant delights.  Pansies features prominently this year,

in beds, in planters, and in hanging baskets.  Pansies come in every color and mixture of

colors these days.  They are very hardy and start blooming when the snow is on the ground

and continue until it gets too hot with summer.  These are a lovely lavender and white.

Pansies - white with touches of yellow and purple.

Pansies in two shades of yellow, edged in blue.

Pansies in yellow and deep wine color.

Pale blue pansies

Lavender and white pansies

Lavender, yellow, and white pansies

Dramatic purple and white striped pansies

These small pansies are called Johnny-Jump-Ups

African Daisies fall into four major catgories and all are originally from South Africa.

White African Daisies

Pale purple African Daisies

A bed of African Daisies

A bed of two-toned African Daisies

African Daisies / Osteospermum.  These are another variety of African Daisies,

and they really look like this.  The end of each petal is a little spoon, as you can see on 

the next picture.  There were dozens of bushes of them at the Lakeside Pavilion.

White Osteospermum / African Daisies

"Flirtation" Twinspur  /  Diascia

Coral Twinspur  /  Disascia.  The bushes are completely covered with small

colorful flowers.

"White Opalescence" Twinspur  /  Diascia

"Violet Ice" Twinspur  /  Diascia

The Gardens were also in the midst of Flowering Crabapple Time.  There were 300

white Flowering Crabapple trees around the Great Basin lake, and then other trees

scattered around the gardens.  They are splendid.  This one is in the

Japanese Garden.

One of my favorite Flowering Crabs is this White Weeping Crab, which stands

at the end of a long allee of poplar trees.

There are a number of different varieties of flowering crabapple.  This is the

"Sargent White" flowering crab in the Herb Garden.

But there were also soft pink flowering crabs along the river and lake.

And there were these deep magenta flowering crabapples.

Foxglove or Digitalis were also featured in several gardens.

Foxglove or Digitalis

A close-up view shows that each blossom is dotted and striped.

Foxglove come in every color, and some stand six feet high.

Close-up of a foxglove stalk and blossoms.

"Fama White" Scabiosa - Pincushion Flower

Lavender Scabiosa - Pincushion Flower

Virginia Bluebells were found in many of the gardens.  They are very different from

Texas Bluebells.

Virginia Bluebells

White Daffodils / Narcissus with small yellow cups

"Double Radiance" yellow daffodil

White Daffodils with medium peach cups

Yellow Daffodils with medium yellow cups

Double Ivory Daffodil with orange markings

White Daffodils with large orange cups

Lemon Yellow Daffodils with large orange cups

"Actaea White Daffodils" with tiny yellow cups edged in red

Can you imagine how many possible color and cup-size variations there are?

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