This week, the blossom is slowly drying and falling from the trees. Last week, the old Wilding Apples on the heath were at their most beautiful. Descendents of domestic apples from an old cottage orchard that has long since been turned into the more exotic garden of a 1930`s country house. Bird-sown apple seeds grew into a wild scattering of crab apple wildings. This spring, after a long, hard winter, the aged trees seemed to give of their best at blossom time.
Silver birch leaves emerged, papery fine in lime fresh green.
At the bottom of the hill, three gnarled and lichen encrusted wilding apple trees grow..........
....and the oldest is the loveliest of them all.
In the lane, wood sorrel flowers on a ditch bank.....
...violets prefer the shade beneath a hedge.....
....while dandelion suns shine for the emerging bumble bees, who hum and hover as they gather the early nectar of the spring.
7 comments:
Your pictures today are exquisite. The apple blossom is only just coming out up here and is so beautiful.
How beautiful everything is. I love the silver birch. We have a neighbor a few doors away who has one surrounded by very pretty woodsy flowers. Not easy to do in our climate.
There is something very special about old apple trees. They may be gnarled and twisted, they may only bear apples that are sour and knobbly, but in blossom-time they are such lovely things and allow a nostalgic glimpse of an orchard's former beauty.
Oh, and I missed them by just a cat's whisker . . . Give Jenny's Apple Tree a hug from me - I should have done it personally this week . . .
I just learned from a neighbour that my very old apple tree (and hers) were here as part of an old orchard, before the houses were built, which makes them at least 80 years old.
It also solves the mystery of whether they were cookers or eaters- they are cider apples!
the blossom is lovely, such beautiful photos...
Such a different area from where we live in the Yorkshire Dales but what lovely scenery and such apple blossom.
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