Don't Blink!

Or you'll miss the pink.

That's how it feels, anyway,  for pink lovers who live in the Land of the Ten Day Spring. You see, for about two weeks around this time of year, the south turns into a Pink Paradise. Azaleas of every shade imaginable burst into bloom in perfect concert with the flowering dogwoods.

It. is. beautiful.
 It's also fleeting.

And this year, I nearly missed it.

Meaning, of course, that I almost missed capturing it with the shiny red Kodak.

We had an early spring in these parts. The pear trees bloomed two full weeks earlier than usual, and it looked as if our dogwoods and azaleas were on the same fast track.  I had the Kodak poised and ready, but then... it started to rain.

                 And it rained...
                                              and rained...
                                                                     and rained some more.

Any days that weren't rainy were cold and gloomy.  I tried to capture it anyway, but the pink exposion just doesn't pop against gloomy gray.

See?

I was about to give up hope, when I woke up this morning, and the sun was shining, just in the nick of time. Too bad the drama in the above photo was already gone. As I said, don't blink.

Never fear, though. There are plenty more yet blooming around here.

Since you've already seen the pear tree view from my front porch, I thought you might want to see  the pink explosion in the piney stick forest.

I'd like to see a pink explosion in the piney stick forest too. Unfortunately, that's not our piney stick forest. Ours has exactly one azalea, and it's already droopy. Who wants to see a droopy azalea?

Instead, I took a little tour around town
stopping traffic and crouching in bushes at will
to bring you the azaleas of 2011.


That hot pink azalea is my favorite shade of all,

but it's certainly not the only shade.

There's a purply pink magenta

And this varigated one

And this medium pink, 
which isn't even the lightest shade of azalea.

 There's a pastel one that hasn't fully bloomed yet.

It has huge blossoms, just like those white ones.

The lighter the color, the bigger the blossoms seem to be.

White azaleas flank the lawn of the local botantical garden.

There's a wedding here today. Won't it be lovely?

Here they have native azaleas, too...

Kind of freaky looking, aren't they?

I think I prefer the more common  kind.

As for the dogwoods, I'm just the opposite.

While I love the lacey white ones,

my favorite ones are the less common pinks.

Have you ever seen anything more lovely?

I don't think I have.
I think the pink dogwood gets the grand prize.

*****
I'm sharing this with the gals at Pink Saturday.
And since pink azaleas and dogwoods are some of  my favorite things,
I'm bopping on over to Bargain Hunting and Chatting with Laurie
  for her  Favorite Things party as well.

Just call me a party girl today.