Forsythia, Redbud, a 5-card box of greeting cards designed by Meriah Kruse

Wild Forsythia hedges, not the neatly manicured sort with all the branches cut to the same length that one sometimes spies in the city, but rather Forsythia allowed to do what it does best in the early spring in Kentucky – jut out with abandon in varying directions like a woman with a wild hairdo, covered top to bottom in small bright yellow blossoms, creating golden streaks against the backdrop of still-brown lawns and still-bare trees.  Redbud, scattering subtle hints of magenta and rose throughout the woods, casting its pink hue amongst the deep shadows of black and gray wooded silhouettes, spreads hope that the final freeze of the Spring has finally passed.