Our broke town couldn’t afford to light up City Lake for Christmas this year, but Mother Nature has taken care of spring decorations. Look at the azaleas.

I love azalea season in my Greystone neighborhood. I have a yard full of different varieties and usually add at least one a year–or occasionally, several. Sometimes I’m matching others in a bed, and sometimes I see a new color I like! In my opinion, there are no wrong landscaping choices when it comes to azaleas.

I like to ride around town, too, to look at the variety of azaleas in other yards. Recently, I found my way to Sycamore Street, a place of fond memories. Growing up in the country in Edgecombe County, I enjoyed a bit of city life when I’d spend the night with my uptown cousins, who lived on this street. Those days are long gone–the cousins moved to Texas in the late 1960’s–but the azaleas up and down Sycamore Street are still in bloom.

From Sycamore Street, it’s a short drive to the Meadowbrook Park neighborhood, adjacent to Meadowbrook Road, where my husband grew up. Here I found this stunning display of a variety of azaleas.

West Haven is a historic neighborhood in Rocky Mount, and so many of the homes here have mature landscaping, which sometimes means huge azaleas. Most of this house was hidden behind these lovely azaleas at the edge of the front yard.

Leaving the West Haven neighborhood, I passed by Lakeside Church, where I stopped to take in the beauty of the steeple, showcased behind a bed of multi-colored azaleas.

This display of azaleas coupled with a blooming dogwood tree caught my eye as I drove through the Englewood subdivision. After azaleas, a blooming dogwood tree is a close second in my book of favorite springtime beauties. And what’s more typical in eastern North Carolina than dogwoods and azaleas growing under tall, skinny pine trees.

The residents of this house in the Westridge neighborhood use white azaleas for foundation shrubbery, just like my mother did years ago in front of our brick ranch out in Edgecombe County. Pretty! I also love the American flag on a very high pole in the yard.

I don’t understand people, usually non-Southerners, who say azaleas aren’t worth planting because they don’t bloom that long. The blooming complaint may be true, but once their glory days are over, you still have nice shrubs in your yard.

And oh, how beautiful azaleas are when they bloom.