Late last week I spent several wonderful hours photographing at Green Spring Gardens in Alexandria, Virginia. Green Spring Gardens is a wonderful public garden in Fairfax County. Located at 4603 Green Spring Road, the gardens are open year round with free admission. In addition to formal gardens, there is a wooded stream valley and a native plant gardens. The native plant gardens are one of my favorite parts of Green Spring Gardens to spend time in. Not only are there a great variety of native plants in the garden, but many have identification signs, which makes it much easier to figure out what I’ve photographed.

This was my first visit to Green Spring Gardens this year – and it was just a couple of days after I visited Brookside Gardens. There were significant differences between what was in bloom between the two gardens – a few warm days and a slightly difference climate make all the difference in the world.

The first set of flowers I photographed were a variety of reticulated irises called Natasha. They are a pale flower with blue stripes and a striking yellow patch.

(c) 2010 Patty Hankins

I also found some wonderful daffodils to photograph.

(c) 2010 Patty Hankins

And some pansies. I was happy to find some pansies in good shape to photograph – it’s been a tough winter and many of the pansies that wintered over aren’t looking very good.

(c) 2010 Patty Hankins

The big surprise was discovering a rhodedendron already in bloom. The Korean Rhododendron (Rhododendron mucronulatum) is a early flowering rhododendron that adds a great splash of pink to a garden in the spring.

(c) 2010 Patty Hankins

And finally – I found some crocuses to photograph! When I first arrived at Green Spring Gardens that morning, the crocuses weren’t open yet. After a couple of hours – they were absolutely wonderful. This patch of purple and white crocuses were my favorites.

(c) 2010 Patty Hankins

It’s so nice to be photographing flowers outdoors again – while I love seeing them in conservatories in the winter – I’m really much happier photographing outdoors.