Spring 2013 is a winner for Apples . . . unlike last year . . . and this year, luckily, we did not get a killing frost to the fragile flowers. Hopefully last nights hail did not damage the forming fruit. These blooms have all but faded now but were like fragrant clouds within the gardens for a couple of weeks. Featured here are the Apple trees in our lower, east-facing, south garden that runs down into the blueberry fields. I was lucky to have inherited these trees when moving here and have cared for them for over thirty years now.
Our Apple Gateway is mightily floriferous and we look forward to the bounty of fruit.
A Yellow-rumped Warbler enjoys a dead branch for a perch.
Baltimore Orioles open the apple blossoms to find treats within.
Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers drill for sweet sap that flows within the old Apple trunks.
Looking up from the blueberry field there is a multitude of new spring hue and texture in leaves and blooms.
Standing beneath the Apple Gateway looking up towards the 1790 farmhouse, Magnolia soulangeana, and majestic two-hundred-year-old Rock Maples.
Male Baltimore Oriole (above) and female (below) favor the Apple blossoms for gleaning tasty insects.
A 'bonsai' Apple appears to be growing from of an outcropping of granite.
Our most majestic Apple offers an interesting form and delicious fruit.
The 'bonsai' apple is over to the left . . . a Shagbark Hickory in the background of the upper garden.
I have not taken the fruit to an expert to identify, but they are heirloom varieties
akin to McIntosh, Cortland and Roxbury Russet with one of the Gateway apples reminding me of a Golden Delicious.
Light, wind and mist embrace trees wearing white blossoms or leafy greens and there is such a diversity of life flitting in and out of the bountifulness of branches. Crusty, languid limbs of Apple stately stand about our surroundings throughout the seasons . . . like charcoal drawn sentinel beings slicing the air while their supportive fleshy roots reach deeply down into the dark, moist, restorative, loamy womb of our earth. They are our connection to that which dwells within a soulful, regenerative realm beneath the lively, light-filled, surface layer we stride upon. 'Trees of knowledge' nourishing body and spirit and like a good friend, offering a solid something to lean into. I love these dear old friends . . . that never stop giving . . . inspiring in their beauty and deliciously beneficial in their sustenance for all life.