I love the spiky shadows on the sidewalk.

I didn't make it to the Philadelphia Flower Show. 

Fortunately there are blooms abundant free for the viewing on my daily walk.

Daffodils, crocuses, miniature irises … all those planned and planted beauties decorate gardens all through the neighborhood.

I'm particularly fond of the unplanned blossoms, the ones I call "voluntary plants."

Each year, it seems, a new volunteer appears in our yard. One year it was a tiny blue flower shaped like the most miniature of orchids. This year, a delicate white bloom has popped atop tall, green stems.

  In front of a friend's house down the street, minute clover-like flowers festoon the crack between two sidewalk blocks. A corner house is awash in yellow cousins of the daisy.

The yard maintenance industry may not agree with me, but I'd say even dandelions have their beauty, in their sunny yellow and even puff-ball stages.

One woman's weed is another woman's wildflower.