14 April 2025 – It’s spring time, full-tilt — but even so, twists of last fall and winter are still woven into the offering.

We’re once again at the VanDusen Botanical Garden. We’re eager for spring and, at first, that’s all we see.

Western skunk cabbages are once again a-glow in the boggy creek that feeds into Livingstone Lake…

and trilliums, Ontario’s provincial flower, are in their seasonal glory on a slope in the VanDusen’s Eastern North America garden.

Then we begin to notice the overlaps, the twists in time.

Glossy two-tone Southern Magnolia leaves are always with us…

but all around the R. Roy Forster Cypress Pond, those same two tones tell a more complex story. Here the green of new ferns begins to rise above the year-round ochre of cypress “knees.”

Just off the north end of the pond, the shadow fork of a still-bare deciduous tree frames the spring blossoms of this burst of Snake’s Head…

while over at the north end of Heron Lake, this Japanese Maple doesn’t yet obscure the long view down the lake. (But just wait another few weeks! Those leaves are about to unfurl.)

Face to face with the spring blossoms of this Sargent’s Magnolia, we’re also face to face with fall and winter. Petals already litter the ground — where they lie atop the desiccated leaves that fell last year. Visible also, there in the lower left quadrant of the photo, another reminder of last year: rusty skeletons of Mophead Hydrangea.

In the Fern Dell, the Tasmanian Tree Fern is — I think — putting out new spring fronds. (A hemispheric twist in time: from the Down-Under cycle of seasons, to our own, here in the Up-Over.)

There are things that don’t change, such as the deep-textured bark of a mighty Douglas Fir..

and things that do, such as the intricate spring coils of the Hedge Fern.

An old Emperor Oak leaf is caught in the glossy leaves of an Autumn Camellia (which saves its blooms, thank you very much, for fall)…

and this season’s cherry blossoms are already flying through the air like confetti…

as if they know that the Sakura Days Japanese Fair has now ended.

No, I take that back.

Yes, the Fair has ended, and yes, petals are flying — but these Daybreak Cherry trees are still laden with blossoms.

How fitting that the marble sculpture they shelter, titled Woman, is by Japanese artist Kiyoshi Takahashi.