Further signs of spring were to be seen in the Southwest Corridor Park this past weekend, where a stand of red witch hazel bloomed crimson against an azure sky. I’m accustomed to seeing the common yellow version, a cheery pre-cursor to the more vulgar and sprawling forsythia, so when I happened upon this red variation a year ago I made a mental note to find it again this season.
That used to be how I marked driving directions: take a right at the clump of blue lupines, bear left before the trio of dogwoods, if you see a swath of Echinacea you’ve gone too far. I still mark my way around the Boston Public Garden by the demarcation of plants – the entrance by the double-file viburnum, the bench beneath the metasequoia, or the corner covered in Scilla siberica. It’s much more fun than Google maps.
