Cold, wet, and pretty

It’s been a long cold spring in Vancouver, with a recent trough of Arctic air keeping temperatures well below normal. Today, the wind blew and the rain poured down. I huddled inside, but at one point looked out the window to notice there’s a lot of beauty happening out there. Here's some of what I saw:

Our dining-room lamp reflected in the laurel hedge set me noticing that the golden chain tree is about to bloom, and that the neighbours' lit window was a cheerful break in the late-afternoon gloom.

The sun had decided to spotlight the weeping birch by then, making a nice contrast to the shadowy lilacs outside the back door. 

Lilacs and the about-to-bloom snowflake viburnum outside the back door.

The white bleeding hearts seem very happy in this miserable weather. 

Such a strange petunia. I saw it at Southlands nursery recently and plunked it in a planter at the base of the back door. 

Outside the front door, the late-afternoon light against a stormy sky accentuated our neighbour's huge evergreen tree and red-tip photinia. Our laurel hedge is in the foreground.

Our loyal red azalea, a fixture since we bought our house in the 1970s, is in full bloom outside the front door. Its partner on the other side of the walk gave up and died a couple of years ago; I'm grateful this one is hanging in.