What are your favorite times of year in the garden? Some of your favorite flowers and plants? Each season brings its own beauty and certain goodies - I'm always ready for that next change. Again, it's my mood that decides my favorites - whether I crave a good dose of color, decadence in a full fat bloom, or just beautiful branches and foliages. In the spring I love white dogwood, ranunculus, gold peonies, floppy open parrot tulips, the first of the late spring fragrant cabbage roses, green hellebores... Summer it's all about bright flowers with blooming herbs, vegetables and fruit (I love all the endless combinations). I'm always ready for fall - to ditch all the flowers in favor of beautiful colored leaves - Bradford pear, viburnum, maple, etc. with all the rose hips, berries and acorns I can get my hands on. It's all about the textures. Winter brings the pleasure of just enjoying the form of beautiful bare branches against a wall - hazelnut, birch, colored dogwood branches - I crave the simplicity of them in the winter. But then that branch sits in a warm house in water long enough and those tiny little leaves start to come and I'm ready for spring all over again!!! I have to admit that spring is my favorite - it's all about the thrill of watching spring come about, leaf by leaf - there's so much promise in that - of new beginnings... All those shades of green just do it for me. The sheer vitality of it energizes me like no vitamins ever could...