Apple blossom

Perfect pink cups

Apple blossom has to be the most beautiful of all the fruit blossoms.

This sprig is on one of the ‘native’ trees – that is, ones that were already here when we bought the house.

The native trees always bloom first. They’re robust and I never spray them. But their apples usually go uneaten because they’re hard and fibrous with very little juice.

 

Apple blossom in miniature

White montbretia inflorescence

When the white montbretia at the front of the house looked like it was taking over the flowerbed, I was dismayed.

I thought it was boring, colourless and much less attractive than the grape hyacinths it was displacing.

Anyway last summer’s drought pinned it back, but a couple of days ago I noticed it was just creeping into flower.

I had a close-up lens on my camera at the time so I photographed it – and it’s so pretty! Like tiny sprigs of fruit blossom complete with pink-and-yellow stamens.

It’s a reminder of what there is to look forward to in a month or so’s time.

The orchard in spring

The photo shows the corner of the orchard  furthest away from the house and the drive, where there are two apple trees next door to each other.

The weather has been so wet of late that I doubt if much of the apple blossom has been pollinated.

The rain has been excellent for the grass, though.

The grass in the orchard is quite different to the grass in the olive grove beyond it, even though we never sowed any grass seed after planting the fruit trees but just let it repopulate by itself. It’s much softer, lusher and fast-growing.

It’s perfect if you want to flop down in it for a picnic or a snooze at this time of year, but (along with its weeds) it rapidly gets to head height if you don’t strim it.

I’ll be having the delightful job of strimming it quite soon. In fact the sooner the better, because if everything gets too high, it’s twice the labour.

Cherry blossom

Durone di Cesena cherry tree

It’s not a patch on the pink cherry blossom in Japan, but still quite impressive I would say.

This is one of our two Durone di Cesena cherry trees; we planted a third cherry tree of a different sort, but I don’t know what variety it is.

There’s a place in Foligno where, every Summer, a lady sells Durone di Cesena cherries out of the back of her car. They are absolutely delicious – the best sort of cherry you could imagine. Apparently her brother has a whole orchard of nothing but cherry trees.

Our trees, however, have never had a single cherry between them. Well, I tell a lie: last year they each had a couple of deformed ones that the birds ate.

So let’s hope this is their big year.

I have a funny suspicion that it won’t be. It always seems that the weather changes just when the cherry blossom comes out. Along with apple blossom, it’s the last to open.

When I took the photo there weren’t many bees around, which might have been just because it was evening, or it might have been because they weren’t venturing out at all due to the weather.

The blossom had the most glorious scent, though. I wonder if it was my imagination, or did it actually smell like cherries?

Apple blossom with bee

Bee visiting apple blossom

I took this photo looking into the evening sun. There weren’t many bees about but this one was quite obliging.

The apple tree it’s visiting doesn’t form part of the ‘grid’ of the orchard. It’s what could be termed a ‘native’ in the sense that it was already there when we arrived, and sprouted again after the drive was widened.

I love the pink buds of apple blossom. They aren’t prominent in the photo because the bee is frequenting mature flowers, naturally.