Fairy Crown #6 – Shady Lady

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If my fairy crown for May 24th makes me look like a shady lady, blame it on the woodland plants now emerging under deciduous trees freshly leafed-out in my garden.  Most prominent in my crown is lily-of-the-valley (Convallaria majalis), which I have nicknamed “guerilla of the valley” for its invasive nature. Native Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum biflorum) with its pendant, green-tipped, white flowers is visible over my right eye. The fuzzy white flowers are fothergilla, from the shrubs in my front pollinator garden. The lavender-blue flowers are Camassia leichtlinii ‘Caerulea’, and since the fragrant snowball viburnum (V. x carlcephalum) was still perfuming the air, I added one of those, too.

Most prominent of my woodlanders is native Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum biflorum). I love this plant – for its tall, elegant stems that always arch in the same direction, its pendant, pearl-drop flowers, its brilliant, gold autumn color and its absolute ease of care.

Each year, my drifts get a little bigger but it is easy to pull out by the roots if it meanders too far down a border. It thrives in a partly shaded location in my side yard garden where, along with other woodlanders, it flanks the winding entrance path under my massive black walnut tree and is a joy from spring to fall.

Alas, the same cannot be said of my lily-of-the-valley (Convallaria majalis).  I suspect many gardeners have come to regret the day they bought a certain plant or ignored one already growing in their gardens. Since we’ve lived in our house for almost 40 years and there was not much here in the way of gardens when we bought it, I suspect it was hiding under overgrown shrubs along the property line. So when I began to dig out new beds and borders, enriching the soil with amendments and adding a big roster of desirable perennials, the lily-of-the-valley began its territorial march. So stealthy was this invasion and so quickly did it change the dynamic of my garden that I renamed it ‘guerilla-of-the-valley’.  You can see it as a green carpet under the bulbs in this photo of my grandson tiptoeing through the tulips.

Not everyone has this problem; indeed many friends find it difficult to grow and would love a few pips; some garden writers even call it a “useful groundcover”. To that, I point to their dense, mat-like roots so tough to dig out and mutter Caveat emptor. 

Nevertheless, the fragrance from my front garden in mid-May is enchanting and I always enjoy cutting the stems for little bouquets, either on their own or combined with other flowers in bloom now, including the fragrant viburnums, blue camassia, common grape hyacinth and small daffodils, including amazing, long-lasting ‘Golden Echo’, below.

I once even created a perfumed lily-of-the-valley hat for a garden party, and gave the how-to instructions in this blog!

In my front yard pollinator garden, the fothergilla shrubs (F. ‘Mount Airy’) come into flower now with their scented, cream-white, bottlebrush inflorescences.  Depending on the amount of summer sunshine and rain or irrigation my garden receives (and fothergilla does prefer adequately moist soil), the leathery leaves take on vivid fall colours of yellow, gold, apricot, scarlet and purple.

I love white and blue combinations in the garden and this fothergilla-camassia duo is delightful.

Camassia leichtlinii ‘Caerulea’ is such a lovely spring bulb, a cultivar of Pacific Northwest native Leichtlin’s camas or ‘quamash’ that is surprisingly hardy in the east.  My camassia clumps expand each year, as they do in the camas prairies of British Columbia, Washington and Idaho where their edible roots which were a food staple for native peoples. The gorgeous blue flowers offer nectar to queen bumble bees, below, and honey bees provisioning their nests; they also make beautiful cut flowers. 

Camassia has a place in my lily pond garden in the back yard as well.

Like tulips and daffodils, camassia foliage should be allowed to turn yellow to feed the underground bulb. If camassia has a fault, it’s that the blooms last such a short time, but for me, a brief, utterly memorable scene is better than one that lasts so long that you stop noticing it. Here’s a little musical video tribute.

Along with the camassia, the weeks-long parade of tulips culminates now with the Single Late tulips featuring elegant flowers on tall stems.

Among my many favorites are purple-black ‘Queen of Night’….

….rose-pink ‘Menton’…..

….and orange-scarlet ‘El Nino’…..

… with its cyclone swirls of salmon, orange, yellow and pink.

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Want to see more of my Fairy Crowns? 
#1 – Spring Awakening
#2 – Little Blossoms for Easter
#3 – The Perfume of Hyacinths 
#4 – Spring Bulb Extravaganza
#5 – A Crabapple Requiem

Fairy Crown #5 – A Crabapple Requiem

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My fifth fairy crown for May 13th features the tall, elegant, lily-flowered tulip ‘Ballade’, one of my favorites, an award-winner and a little later-flowering than some in its class.  The white flower clusters are from two of my fragrant spring viburnums, V. x burkwoodii and V. x carlcephalum.  The little blue flowers are forget-me-nots (Myosotis sylvatica) and there are common grape hyacinths (Muscari armeniacum) in the crown as well. That yellow flower is a rare garden plant whose name is derived from the French for lion’s tooth…. dent-de-lion. Yes, I have dandelions. Lots!  And at the top is a little sprig of the blossoms of my late and much-mourned crabapple. You see, I made my fairy crowns last year and decided to write about them this year, since most years pass in a familiar pattern of flowering….

…. but as summer 2021 wore on, it was evident that my crabapple tree was dying.  Sadly, these were the last shimmering, May blossoms from the weeping ‘Red Jade’ tree whose branches had cascaded gracefully for 34 years over the lily pond I dug myself in the middle of our back garden.  Here’s a photo from 1987 of me with my late dad who was visiting from Vancouver. You can see the newly-planted crabapple to my left. 

Since ‘Red Jade’ is an alternate-bearing hybrid, it only put on a good flowering and fruiting show every other summer. Introduced in 1953 as an open-pollinated seedling from Malus × scheideckeri  ‘Exzellenz Thiel’ at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, it is one of just a few weeping crabapples.

In its flower-bearing springs, the tree was alive with bees of all kinds, including bumble bees, below.

And in late summer, the birds paid visits for the tiny jewelled fruit – the perfect size for their beaks. But you can see in the photo below that the tree had already lost its leaves to apple scab in summer.  Gardeners tend to assume trees will outlive them – or certainly last through their ownership of a garden – but this is not always true, especially of crabapples.  Still, along with the sadness of losing a cherished plant comes the opportunity to select a replacement; fortunately we now have a broad range of cultivars with resistance to apple scab, fire blight and other diseases.  Or perhaps I’ll choose another species, but whatever tree I choose must be as useful to all the bees, birds and animals that have been sustained over the decades by the white flowers and small, jewelled fruit of my ‘Red Jade’ crabapple. 

At Christmas, we often strung lights on the crabapple and it lent a festive air to the garden outside our kitchen window.

The pond itself remains a vital part of the garden. Though I launched it all those years ago with great ambition and a plan to grow waterlilies and other floating plants, I learned in time that it is one of the higher maintenance features in any garden. The aquatic plants were constantly upended by marauding raccoons; the liner leaked and had to be replaced. So, despite writing a 1997 book called Water in the Garden as part of a magazine-sponsored design series, I gave up on the idea of aquaculture and just treated the pond as a large birdbath and watering hole. And bathe and drink they do: robins, cardinals, sparrows, juncos and many other birds that bring a spark of life to the garden.

Under the crabapple tree, the crescent-shaped garden around the pond is carpeted in spring with a cloud of blue forget-me-nots (Myosotis sylvatica).  So fond am I of this humble little biennial that I once persuaded a magazine editor to let me write its praises. “Sometimes, on a lovely May morning, as I’m looking at the robins bathing in the lily pond in my back garden, I’ll squint a little and imagine what it would look like without that lacy froth of light blue under the ‘Red Jade’ crabapple tree.  Dirt, that’s what it would look like, and the emerging green of perennials, of course. But not nearly as enchanting as the soft blue cloud that floats around the lily pond.”  When my forget-me-nots stop flowering, I pull them out while giving them a good shake where I want them to bloom the following spring.

The forget-me-nots flower at the same time as common grape hyacinth (Muscari armeniacum), a lovely symphony in blue. This grape hyacinth with its azure-blue spikes is the last of the genus to bloom in my spring garden and almost hidden in my fairy crown.  

Along with the blue Siberian bugloss (Brunnera macrophylla) now hitting its stride and the little Confederate violets (Viola sororia var. priceana) that grow wild in my excuse for a lawn, the forget-me-nots and grape hyacinths look lovely in small bouquets.

This is Virginia bluebell (Mertensia virginica) time, too – a lovely, native spring ephemeral. I wish I had much more of this beauty.

Ostrich ferns blanket the earth beneath the Burkwood viburnum (V. x burkwoodii) in my sideyard, whose clustered, white flowers are also tucked into my fairy crown. A hybrid of two Asian species, V. carlesii and V. utile, it reaches 10 feet tall and 7 feet wide and is a very low-maintenance shrub, preferring a partly-shaded site….

…. where the perfume from its blossoms permeates the air around it. 

Another favourite viburnum, flowering a few days later than Burkwood is the fragrant snowball viburnum (V. x carlcephalum).  This shrub grows beside my sundeck so its big, pink-budded, waxy flowers are at just the right height for me to sniff….

…..and to cut and float in a dish so we can enjoy its spicy scent indoors, too.

Though the flowers aren’t in my crown, my serviceberries bloom at this time, too – a pair of tall Amelanchier canadensis shrubs hidden away in a sideyard where I can’t even see them in flower – but the birds have no trouble finding the fruit a few months later!

Tulip season is long, from the Single Early class to the Late or Cottage class; provided temperatures stay somewhat cool, I have tulips in my garden for up to 6 weeks.  Lily-flowered ‘Ballade’ is one of my favourites, and reasonably perennial. Its fluted, mauve-pink blossoms edged crisply with white are spectacular, eventually opening to the sun like waterlilies.

When I removed my fairy crown, I carefully undid the floral tape so I could place the blossoms in water to enjoy for a few days, these treasured blossoms of spring.

What’s a spring garden without weeds, like the dandelions that greet every May with a flourish?  My husband likes the challenge and exercise of trying to keep the garden dandelion-free, and in a place where herbicides for decorative purposes have been rightly outlawed, that requires a lot of hand-weeding.  

Along with the European dandelions comes another European invader, the red fire ant (Myrmica rubra). This little insect with the mighty sting has become a nuisance pest in gardens throughout temperate North America, including mine. That means if I want to tiptoe through the tulips – and dandelions – of May, I had better be wearing shoes!  

And just in case you think that I grow lovely spring bulbs with a few dandelions, my garden also has a healthy crop of invasive garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata) at this time in spring, especially in the far reaches out of sight.  But I drew the line at including this ubiquitous biennial weed in my fairy crown!

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Want to see more of my Fairy Crowns? 
#1 – Spring Awakening
#2 – Little Blossoms for Easter
#3 – The Perfume of Hyacinths 
#4 – Spring Bulb Extravaganza

Fairy Crown #4 – Spring Bulb Extravaganza

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In my garden, the month of May brings the familiar song of the cardinal high up in my black walnut tree, the flurry of house sparrows making nests in the cedar hedge and the buzz of queen bumble bees emerging from their winter nests to forage for pollen.  Most of the early bulbs have now faded away and it is prima donna season for shimmering white daffodils and tulips in a rainbow of warm hues. My fairy crown for early May is a celebration of mid-spring abundance featuring tulips in peach, pink and lilac; ‘Geranium’, ‘Stainless’ and ‘Thalia’ daffodils; peachy ‘Gipsy Queen’ hyacinth still in flower; blue-and-white grape hyacinths (Muscari aucheri ‘Ocean Magic’); wine-red snakeshead fritillary (Fritillaria meleagris); a truss of magenta ‘PJM’ rhododendron; the delicate red blossoms of my Japanese maple (Acer palmatum); and the first tiny, blue flowers of perennial Siberian bugloss (Brunnera macrophylla).

Now is also the time when I rummage through my cupboards searching out small vases, shot glasses, votive candle holders and favorite mugs to hold these long-awaited blossoms to bring the joy and fragrance of spring indoors.

My front garden flanks the city sidewalk – no fence, no obstacles for neighbours and passersby who wish to stop and gaze or capture the flowers with their cell phone. And it’s never more popular than now, when the bulbs bloom in riotous profusion in what will be a towering prairie months later – no single-color blocks for me! 

I’ve never understood gardeners who turn down their noses at tulips. Yes, they’re gaudy!  Isn’t that the point?  We need color after a long winter.

The ‘Shogun’ tulips continue to open while the big Fosteriana tulip ‘Orange Emperor’ starts to flower as well.  I mentioned how much I love orange, right?

Each autumn, I add to the assortment, but old favourites include the big Darwin Hybrids ‘Pink Impression’….

… and ‘Apricot Impression’…

…. and the elegant lily-flowered tulip ‘Ballerina’. 

Other tulips in my spring repertoire that have hung around for more than a few seasons are the luscious double ‘Lilac Perfection’….

…. and the double fringed tulip ‘Crispion Sweet’.

Fragrance in daffodils is important to me, as are longevity and a tendency to multiply. I love the spicy scent of the old Tazetta cultivar ‘Geranium’, with its clustered, shimmering-white flowers with orange cups, like a hardy paperwhite.

And the Triandus hybrid daffodil ‘Thalia’ – sometimes called the orchid narcissus – is another winner. Its dainty, white flowers with their reflexed petals are lovely in spring nosegays, especially with blue grape hyacinths.

Here is ‘Thalia’ in the garden; you can see how it multiplies. And you can also see my favourite little Narcissus ‘Golden Echo’ still in bloom behind.

I do have a fondness for white daffodils (as well as ‘Golden Echo’), and I love those with salmon-pink trumpets, like ‘Pink Charm’, below.

Finally, there’s the Large Cup daffodil ‘Stainless’ with pure white flowers, on the left below.  

The hyacinths from my last fairy crown fade in colour but stay in flower for a long period. Because I love plant combinations of blue and orange, I mix the bulbs of peach-orange ‘Gipsy Queen’ hyacinth and blue-and-white grape hyacinth Muscari aucheri ‘Ocean Magic’ together with delightful results!  

That little grape hyacinth is a stunner in tiny bouquets, too. Here it is with Narcissus ‘Thalia’, Muscari latifolium and Anemone blanda ‘Blue Shades’.

Snake’s head fritillary (Fritillaria meleagaris) is an elegant dark horse in the mid-spring garden with its pendulous, checkered, wine-red flowers. The specific ephithet meleagris means “spotted like a guinea fowl” so another common name is the guinea hen flower.

Though it’s not featured in my crown, another bulb blooming in my garden at this time is summer snowflake, Leucojum aestivum ‘Gravetye Giant’ (which, despite its name, is a spring-bloomer).  I don’t have nearly enough of these elegant flowers.

We often think of Japanese maples (Acer palmatum) primarily as specimen trees, but stand near one in flower on a sunny day in spring….

…. and try to count the native bees buzzing around the tiny, pendulous, red blossoms, like this spring-active Andrena bee.  That’s the little dangling red jewel over my right eye in the fairy crown.

My old tree is planted in a south-facing site in front of our living room windows where it is protected from the cold, north wind – and serves as my leafy curtain from May through November.  Here it is outside my 2nd-floor window (and that’s my husband strolling out in a spring shower.)

Heading into my back garden, we find the tiny blue flowers of Siberian bugloss (Brunnera macrophylla), a frothy groundcover perennial under spring bulbs. It thrives in part shade and is low-maintenance, ultra-hardy, long-flowering and unbothered by pests or disease. There are many variegated-leaf cultivars, but I am partial to the regular species with its lush green leaves. Here it is growing with rhubarb and European wild ginger (Asarum europaeum).

My back garden has a thriving population of ostrich ferns, which is a nice way of saying they’re very successful invaders. Growing amidst them are lots of mid-season tulips whose names I’ve long forgotten, but I believe the magenta-pink one is ‘Don Quichotte’. Aren’t they pretty?

Not all plants in a garden last indefinitely. Some barely hang on, others fight disease, some struggle with winter temperatures – and that’s the case with my Mezitt-hybrid Rhododendron ‘PJM’. At one time, I had three of these hardy, small-flowered shrubs near my lily pond, but over the years they declined, leaving just one to greet spring with its clusters of outrageously brilliant magenta flowers – and a place of honor in my fairy crown.

Speaking of my crown, I’ll leave with a little bouquet of my deconstructed Fairy Crown #4.  What could be prettier than these lovely May flowers?

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Want to see more of my Fairy Crowns? 

#1 – Spring Awakening
#2 – Little Blossoms for Easter
#3 – The Perfume of Hyacinths 

Fairy Crown 3 – The Perfume of Hyacinths

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My third fairy crown for April 25th brings this little wearable garden project one year full circle, from last April 14th when I made my first floral crown. Let’s look at this year’s model, featuring peach-orange ‘Gipsy Queen’ hyacinths; assorted early daffodils including my favourite, the small bicolored ‘Golden Echo’; the fabulous apricot-orange Tulipa praestans ‘Shogun’; T. kaufmanniana ‘Johann Strauss’; early broad-leaved grape hyacinth (Muscari latifolium); Greek windflower (Anemone blanda ‘Blue Shades’); dusky-mauve fumewort (Corydalis solida); and forsythia (F. x intermedia).  

Last year, I crafted my very first floral crown with many of these spring blossoms, but spring weather being what it is, they were in flower 11 days earlier. And given that I’d only planted the ‘Gipsy Queen’ hyacinths in fall 2020, they took their time flowering and weren’t in the mix that early in 2021.  

Soon after the “little blue bulbs” from my last fairy crown hit their stride, a few of the smaller daffodils and species tulips emerge, launching a long flowering ‘big bulb’ parade in a rainbow of colors and shapes.  I know it doesn’t look like much now, but this little pollinator island…

….. is filled with fothergilla, sage, catmint, echinacea, rudbeckia, perovskia, liatris and sedums later; it works hard for its keep!

You can see Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ bulking up here.

Given how some of the fancy tulip hybrids disappear within a few years, my most important criterion for tulips is that they must be reliably perennial. Because I’m fond of orange in the spring garden (especially with bright pink), my favourite early tulip is the multi-stemmed, pumpkin-orange Tulipa praestans ‘Shogun’ (10-12”).  Here it is with hyacinths and Greek anemones, as well as blue Siberian squill.

Like many species tulips, ‘Shogun’ multiplies nicely year after year.

I love the dark stamens. At night, the flowers close.

This is also the season for the dependable Kaufmanniana tulips with their striped leaves, like ‘Johann Strauss’, below.

My early daffodil favorite is the little Jonquilla daffodil called ‘Golden Echo’, bred by my Virginia friends Brent and Becky Heath, which I have blogged about previously. Its multiple 12-16” stems mean that its creamy-white flowers with bright golden trumpets keep flowering for several weeks. Here it is below with broad-leaved grape hyacinth (Muscari latifolium)….

….. with its unusual bi-colored flower spikes.  It’s the first of the grape hyacinths to bloom in my garden.

I like to plant hyacinths (Hyacinthus orientalis) every few years, choosing a spot close to the walkway so their perfume can be enjoyed. As the years pass, their stiff flower spikes begin to relax; though they do not multiply, I still want them in the garden. This is 6-year old ‘Pink Pearl’ with pale-blue striped squill (Puschkinia scilloides), still going strong in our cool spring.

I was quite pleased with this vignette, showing Hyacinthus ‘Gipsy Queen’ in a carpet of blue Siberian squill with Narcissus ‘Golden Echo’ and pink ‘Beth Evans’ corydalis (C. solida) behind.

My Grecian windflowers (Anemone blanda) are flowering now, too; this is ‘Blue Shades’. These sweet ephemerals hail from subalpine meadows and woodlands in the Balkans but they’re perfectly hardy in my garden and such a delight when the long-lasting, daisy-like flowers open amidst the ferny, low foliage. When you’re planting this species in autumn, be sure to soak the knobby tubers overnight and plant them with the smooth side facing down.  Unlike daffodils and tulips which don’t mind drying out in summer, windflowers prefer soil that remains reasonably moist.

On the path into my back garden, the common purple corydalis (C. solida) carpets the earth where tall Solomon’s seals emerge to flower in June. The corydalis has now spread throughout my garden and the “lawn”, but disappears completely within a few weeks.

Some years, I’ve added purple pansies to the corydalis carpet for a little excitement!

In this partly-shaded area under my black walnut tree, the winter aconites (Eranthis hyemalis) have stayed in bloom a long time, and look quite enchanting with the ‘Beth Evans’ corydalis that popped up in their midst.

Every spring is a little different, and this one is decidedly reluctant. But I have always hated the tendency for Ontario springs to go from snow to tropical heat overnight – and that can’t be said about 2022. In fact, we could well have a repeat of 2021’s late snow, below (possibly even this week).

So it’s always a good idea to cut a few blossoms to savour in the house….

….. because having these little treasures at hand is our reward for surviving another Ontario winter!

Fairy Crown 2 – Little Blossoms for Easter

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My second fairy crown for April features an assortment of early spring blossoms that follow fast on the heels of the snowdrops, irises, winter aconites and crocuses that I featured in my first blog in this series.  For this one, I gathered flowers of the hardy bulbs: blue Siberian squill (Scilla siberica), white-centered glory-of-the-snow (Scilla forbesii, formerly Chionodoxa), pale-blue striped squill (Puschkinia scilloides), pink ‘Beth Evans’ corydalis (C. solida) and a few sprigs of scented Farrer’s viburnum (V. farrreri).

In my neighbourhood, early spring features a phenomenon I call ‘blue lawns’. That’s what happens when the little bulb Siberian squill (Scilla siberica) with its nodding, azure flowers…..

….becomes naturalized, as in my garden, below, along with white-centered glory-of-the-snow (Scilla forbesii, formerly Chionodoxa).  Although some regions have found these little bulbs to be invasive, their ephemeral nature means that after finishing flowering they disappear completely. In my garden, summer perennials later completely cover the areas where the squill shone blue a few months earlier.

Although not quite as aggressive as Siberian squill, glory-of-the-snow seeds around slowly to create the same lustrous pools of blue,pale pink and white. Native to Turkey, its starry, white-centered blossoms have a sprightly presence and are particularly lovely under magnolia and forsythia. 

Native to western Asia and the Caucasus, striped squill (Puschkinia scilloides) is another little treasure in my early spring garden. It takes a lot of shade, since some have thrived and multipled tucked in behind a large boxwood shrub.  

The bright pink flowers of Corydalis solida ‘Beth Evans’ offer a striking contrast to glory-of-the-snow. I’ve written about the ‘fumeworts’ before; you can read my blog here.

Many years, it seems, winter is not quite finished in Toronto by the time the early bulbs have started to flower. But they routinely shrug off the odd flurry…

….. and even survive a more serious dump of snow.  Brrrr…. snow is in the forecast this week as well!

Some springs, my little Greek windflowers (Anemone blanda) show their faces in time for a wintry blast. This year, I’m still waiting.

Long ago, when garden rooms were becoming popular, I designed a little fragrance garden for my back yard with a trompe l’oiel trellis backdrop and a small cherub reflected in a mirror. In truth, it was intended to disguise the wall of my next-door neighbour’s garage. One of the first plants I purchased was Farrer’s viburnum (V. farreri), now at its mature size of 12 feet height, 8’ width. It bears clusters of sweetly-perfumed pale-pink flowers in early spring; some even emerge during a February thaw, contrasting with the big forsythia in my neighbour’s garden.

But by late March to mid-April, it is always in full bloom, much to the delight of overwintering mourning cloak butterflies….

….. and the first bees seeking nectar on warm days.

All these early spring bulbs provide loads of material for tiny bouquets whose ingredients vary slightly from year to year, depending on the weather. In 2019, below, Iris ‘Katharine Hodgkin’ was still in flower, as were my crocuses. This year they’re finished.

In 2021, I combined corydalis and Siberian squill in a votive candle holder.

Five years ago, I made this photo of my granddaughter Emma clutching a little bouquet of Siberian squill she’d picked especially for our anniversary on April 16th.  Now 8 years old, she asked for scissors yesterday to pick flowers for….

….. our Easter dinner table – the day after our 45th anniversary!

Emma and her two younger brothers have packed up their chocolate bunnies and headed home now with mommy and daddy.  But on my kitchen table sit the flowery reminders of their stay – and another April fairy crown.