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The ice had nearly melted on the pond, and the buds on the swamp maples were showing red.

There are the first fat crawfish, a blush of pink on the swamp maples and Mardi Gras at the end of the month.

With hundreds of varieties of trees contributing to the design – Eastern white pine, cherry, cypress, swamp maple, cedar and oak, among others – it wasn’t always easy to decide where each piece should go.

Lustrous is the new red of poison ivy and woodbine, of swamp maple and slowly budding oak.

The wind tore the red robes from our swamp maples and sassafras and scattered them in tatters over the lawn.