Spring has officially sprung

5 Comments

1. Rachel A. says:

   February 17, 2010 at 2:14 pm

   Agreed! It is spectacular. And makes one happy.
2. Maureen Burke says:

   February 17, 2010 at 4:49 pm

   Wowza. Looks like Magnolia campbellii, the most heart-breaking Magnolia of them all.
3. Alan Tobey says:

   February 17, 2010 at 4:59 pm

   Actually, blooming cherry trees are the official harbinger of springtime in Berkeley (exactly when the snows are piled deepest on our unfortunate eastern and midwestern fellow-citizens). Mid-Feb magnolias look more like a harbinger of global warming.

   But of course — as the climate scientists keep telling us — climate is not the same thing as weather. So we may just randomly be experiencing about our tenth early-spring-weather year in a row.
4. Maureen Burke says:

   February 17, 2010 at 5:32 pm

   We bought our house in 1980 because a Magnolia campbellii was blooming next door on Valentine’s Day. The deciduous Magnolias–the denudatas, campbelliis soulangeanas–usually bloom coincident with cherries and plums in the Bay Area.
5. jjohannson says:

   February 18, 2010 at 10:27 am

   I said “happy spring” to my 75-year-old neighbor and California native this weekend, and he severely upbraided me. “It’s *not* spring until the rain stops falling. Then, it’s spring.” I said, but my daffodils are coming up, the cherry trees are blossoming, etc. And he said, “It’s not spring.”

   Made me feel like the transplant I am.