Saturday 3 May 2014

Kentucky Derby Day



Today is the day of the historic Kentucky Derby which takes place in Louisville, Kentucky.  This was commemorated at Wegmans supermarket with special cupcakes decorated with horseshoes, fancy hats, horses heads and roses (the winning horse in the Derby is covered with a blanket of roses).

We visited Wegmans on the way back from a Conservation Centre in Fairfax where we collected a pack of tree seedlings and a pack of bare root shrubs for the garden.  Now we just have to get them all planted!

At the Conservation Centre we learned that our unidentified flowering tree is in fact a flowering dogwood, native of Virginia and officially the 'state tree'.  This afternoon we saw one growing wild in the woods.


There are other flowering dogwoods, some of them Japanese cultivars which are grown in gardens here, such as this rather spectacular one along the road from us.


Another very striking tree in nearby gardens is known as 'red bud' but in this case is a striking purple colour with an unusual flower which grows straight out of each branch.




1 comment:

  1. I think you will find that the Redbud tree is also known as the Judas tree. Mum has one in the garden that has flowered for the first time this year. She is disappointed to find it is white. There is also a close up of one on my blog on 25th April. I think they are beautiful.

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