Shanghai in bloom

Shanghai isn't alive with green space, but it has some nice little parks tucked away here and there. We have a backyard here, but the landscaping is controlled by our landlord so I miss my gardening. Perhaps that makes me a bit more attentive to the botanical happenings around me. If we're still doing this next year and we're still here, I'll do more of a blow by blow of spring blooms -- bet you can hardly wait. In college I read part of one of Thomas Jefferson's Monticello garden logs. It listed the specific dates of the sprouting, blooming and harvesting of every plant in the garden. Needless to say, there weren't too many people who had checked it out before me. I recognize that the attention span for a botanical blog entry is short so I'll skip to some pictures. There are a lot of these camellias in Shanghai. The symmetries are amazing as is the scent.



There are also some hollyhocks around. I always liked hollyhocks. They have a very cottage-y feel. Here are some of the last blooms of the season.