Buds: Unfolding Gifts

It is still early spring here in northern Vermont, with most trees still bare of leaves and daffodils and forsythia the only flowers blooming. But there's evidence of beauty to come as buds on trees and shrubs swell, disclosing hints of what they contain. The elegant structure of a lilac bud opens to show tiny violet spheres.

The long leaves surrounding the tightly gathered rounds of the Nannyberry bud look as though they might start spinning and fly away.

The American Cranberry, Viburnum trilobum, has a much frillier package, with lacy leaf-ends folded over the flower bud.

A deep rich burgundy sprouts from a honeysuckle stem, soon to be new green leaves.

The narrow buds on the apple trees promise leaves but not blossoms; this is their year of rest.

Furled green leaf buds are a soft contrast to the thorns on a Rosa rugosa cane.

I love looking out my back windows at this time of year to see the knobby buds on the White ash tree, dotting the tree with their dark protuberances. Looking more closely, I see rounds of flower buds cupped by opening scales, looking a little bit like the lilac bud. These different small packages are promises of new life, of the rebirth that comes with Spring.