When I walked on rainy, cloudy, windy, grey, and/or snowy days in Vancouver this February, I relied on bare branches, peeling bark, bunches of berries, and popping buds to provide myself with botanical interest. 
But when I started to write this article, I noticed a faint splash of pink here and there, with a nod of white and a lick of yellow. These colours brought the blossoming moments of February into focus.
The early pink rhododendron whose blossoms were dark before opening in January are fully opened now in February and a paler pink. 
I began noticing flowers on wind-pollinated trees, such as elm trees ( the first two photographs here). And another wind-pollinated tree that I can’t identify ( the third and fourth photo). Can you? 
Some groundcovers added more pink (heather) and white (snowdrops) and Pachysandra terminalis (Japanese Spurge).
A few small herbaceous plants such as skimmia and pieris, both from Japan, added more pink and white to the scene. 
Then came a small tree covered with yellow blossoms. I wondered whether it might be Cornus mas, the cornelian cherry dogwood, the earliest of the dogwoods. But that dogwood’s flowers are small umbels rather than this tree’s yellow petalous flowers. I will have to see what the leaves are like when they eventually grow. 
Finally, near the end of the month, I walked through one of the mini parks in Vancouver’s West End and there, glorious in pink, were three Prunus subhirtella ‘Whitcomb’ ornamental cherry trees in as full bloom as ‘Whitcomb’ ever gets. 
Now it really feels as though spring is just around the corner. In spite of the snow we keep getting!
Photos and Text By Nina S. Vancouver Master Gardeners