May....The Sweetest Month

While there is beauty to be found throughout the year, the month of May is extraordinary. Oaks, maples, birches and their other deciduous cousins come alive - sometimes in a matter of days - and there is suddenly shade! 

New leaves unfurling and growing rapidly now provide a lovely canopy in a million shades of light green. May in northern climates is the "other" foliage season, and every bit as beautiful as the show the trees put on in autumn.

Think of every word you can for the color green and there still don't seem to be enough to describe the spectacular lush palette one beholds in the new growth. Then there are the beautiful flowering ornamental trees and shrubs, so lovely - but with displays that are so fleeting.

As brief as is the autumn foliage display, the riot of flowering blooms is even more ephemeral...sometimes lasting only a week. But oh, what a week it is! A feast for the eyes, and perfume for the nose. I wish the blooms would stay with us longer.

But maybe the fact that they don't is part of what makes May so perfectly special.

Flowering Crab Apple Tree in Full Bloom