Signs of Life

We took a good, long walk in the Hoyt Arboretum this morning. I have the grandchildren on Saturday afternoons, and they often spend the night (which they are tonight so will respond and look at your journals tomorrow). So we've switched our Sunday morning walk to Saturday morning. It poured rain this morning, but then was partly sunny, so had a great walk.

This is, I believe, a Magnolia tripetala or Umbrella Tree. The arboretum has an amazing collection of Magnolias which bloom over many months - it's such a joy to visit them. At any rate this is the blossom of this Magnolia - I'm not sure when it's going to bloom but will watch for it. Probably not in December :-)  It's an evergreen Magnolia native to the eastern US and grows in USDA zones 5-8...so really on the margin of zones here since we're zone 8b and sometimes flirting with zone 9.

Hope you've all enjoyed the day after Christmas...onwards!