Apple Blossoms

Hello my dear friends, 

At this time of year it seems that our gardens are changing by the day!  It has been a very cool wet spring but we are now starting to see life bursting forth in our trees and gardens.

We have many apple trees at the farm. We planted some but most of them are very old trees that have been here forever or are trees that have seeded themselves and have been maturing.

We have a pasture that we call Crab Apple Grove.  I love to name things!!  This is a small pasture in front of our barn and several years ago we purchased 8 small end-of-season crab apple trees.  Of course sheep and young trees are not a good combination so once we planted them we protected them with wooden enclosures.  The trees have honestly not had any coddling from us but they have all survived and are now about 6 or 7 feet tall.  We have long since lost the tags but the trees have either pink or white flowers.

The pink crab apple trees are all blossoming but the white ones are not.

This poor old tree has been in Crab Apple Grove forever.  It is broken and if you look carefully you can see tufts of sheeps' wool on many of the branches.  These trees are incredibly resilient and even though it has seen better days it is leafing out for another year!

I love

I love the intense pink of this crab apple.

This old tree has lovely white flowers with just a hint of pink.

We call this area Apple Lane.  It was here when we bought the farm almost 25 years ago.  A double row of mature apple trees that go no where!  We often wonder about it.  Was it a laneway once upon a time and if so where was it supposed to go?  It ends at our property line.  It starts in the midde of our property.  It is a mystery.  I wanted to take a photo from the end of the lane as it is quite pretty but the mosquitoes are impossible this evening and I abandoned the idea of making the trekk to get a better photo.

This lamb wondered what was happening.  Sheep love to eat apples!  We often say that a sheep can hear an apple falling from a mile away.  Apples are one of their favourite food groups.

I dont have a name for this area but should come up with one.  This row of old apple trees separates Crab Apple Grove from the neighbouring pasture.  The fence that separated these two areas has long since fallen into disrepair and we have not gotten around to repairing it.  It is however on the list of things to do as I would like to be able to properly fence off Crab Apple Grove so that we can reseed the pasture.  The sheep are often found lounging under these apple trees, and in the heat of the summer these trees provide much needed shade.

This old apple tree is in an area we call The Grove.  I have photographed it many times over the years as it is astonishing that this shell of a tree remains standing.

It is really just a skeleton of a tree but each tree is produces leaves and flowers!

This crab apple tree is in a shrub border in what we call Bailey's Garden.  Bailey was one of our German Shepherds.  He unexpectedly and tragically passed away after developing gastric torsion.  He was only 3 years old.   All of our departed and much loved pets are buried here at the farm in their own gardens and this crab apple is in Bailey's Garden.  I was happy to see this bumble bee flitting from blossom to blossom!

These lovely white cascading blossoms are on a crab apple tree that is close to our veranda.   The tree is currently covered in white blossoms and has an intensely sweet fragrance.  The blossoms only last for a couple of days before covering the decks and flagstone landing with its' petals.

Thank you so much for visiting my blog!  Wishing everyone a lovely weekend.