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[Prof. Felicia Hartwick]

May Flowers Discussion - Week 4 - Flowering Trees and Shrubs

 

What kind of flowering trees are in your neighborhood? Do you have fruit trees, like apple trees or cherry trees in bloom now? What about flowering shrubs? Have you perhaps a lilac bush nearby? They are so beautiful and smell lovely!

 

Write (and post below) at least 100 words about the trees and shrubs in your neighborhood and/or vicinity and earn 10 Diamonds!  You are welcome to write more, in response to what others say, and earn an additional 10 Diamonds if your post is at least 100 words long.

 

If you choose to take pictures and put them with your post, please make sure they are 600x600 or less in size.

 

You have until May 31st to post.   You earn a bonus of 3 Diamonds, though, if you post one or both within a week of me posting this!

[Prof. Tarma Amelia Black]

I've already mentioned or alluded to flowering shrubs and trees in other posts, but I will be more specific here!

 

The apples trees in the orchard nearby are blooming enormously. Its sort of fun to noticed how, even though they are all apple trees, they do not all bloom at the same time. Different kinds of apples bloom at different times, but all around this 'general' time period.

 

The Madrone trees are blooming! I just noticed that yesterday, when I was admiring the Madrone tree close to the house. It's pretty much all trunk for quite a ways up, so unless I am specifically looking at it, I don't usually look up (and up) to see it's leaves and 'oh look, there are flowers!'

 

This picture (not mine) is about how well I can see the flowers  ...

 

 

as I look up into the branches.  This picture (not mine) is what they look like if closer to them ....

 

 

The rhododendrons are blooming everywhere now. Driving to town, they nestle amongst the trees and colour the way with blooms of all kinds of colours.  Also seen is the Scotch Broom -- with its sunny gold blossoms.

[Maxim Trevelyan]

When I drive to work, I pass by a house that has a single cherry tree. Month or few weeks ago, it was in full bloom and it was a marvelous sight to see. All that color between the usual greenness of the place and the grey house. It stuns me every time I went past and I deliberately went on a longer drive path just to see it.

 

Closer to my house, we have elderberry in full bloom! It has those white flowers and smells deliciously. I just to drink elderberry syrup and it can be used for other things as well, mostly as medicine or in food, such as pancakes!

[Shadow Gaunt]

Maxim has reminded me of the name of the tree I was talking about in my last post:

 

Finally, there are these trees with pale pink-white petals/buds. They’re BEAUTIFUL , especially when the petals fall. While this might seem like an apple tree, it is in fact not.

 

CHERRY TREES. There is at least one on every street and all the petals that fall create a pink carpet underneath your feet. I love walking or riding a bike under one and it feels like you’re in a fairy tale world.

 

Another tree that you can often see around is the oak tree. Oak trees are a bit here and there, but there are two that I can name that are extremely tall. They’re magnificent and you do have to wonder how they still stand.

[Prof. Tarma Amelia Black]

Shadow talks of walking under the cherry trees and it reminds me of yesterday when I went to another town and saw a bunch of different trees - acacia and forsythia (and lilacs as large as trees!). The people there bring in 'non native' plants and have some absolutely gorgeous yards! Also along the way, driving to the town, I saw wild rose bushes, absolutely huge, and covered with blooms.

 

Of flowers -- not quite on topic but something I remember - when I came back to my own stomping grounds, I saw a trefoil plant blooming in a crack in a sidewalk. There there were bunches of calendula flowers and poppies here and there and then a carpet of poppies (which someone was taking pictures of - it was just so golden gorgeous).

[Prof. Felicia Hartwick]

In my backyard I have two HUGE and I mean Huge bushes!  When we first moved in to the house we let a year go not really doing anything with the trees and bushes because we wanted to see what they actual were. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw these bushes bloom. I learned that it is called a Bridal Bush. I was worried that we lost them due to the many snow storms we had this March. We received a number of snow storms that socked us with 8 inches at a time of wet, heavy snow that brought the branches right down to the ground. But I am please to say they came bouncing back.

 

 

click for large picture

 

 

 

 

[Maxim Trevelyan]

When Shadow talked about an oak tree, she reminded me to check out the tree we have right before our front steps, which I think is an oak tree. I mentioned before that I am not the best at identifying trees. We had a cherry tree before, but had to cut it down, sadly, probably due to an infestation or some other thing. However, the oak tree is still growing strong and in spring, as well as summer, it throws the perfect shade onto the balcony. It is just lovely sitting on the chairs in the balcony, drinking coffee or eating ice-cream in the warm weather.

[Will Lestrange]

Where I live, the main things I see every day out my window are not flowering trees but construction!  So I actually had to do a Google search to find the type of flowering trees that 'should' be present in my local neighborhood:  a Google search landed me on the magnolia, which is one of the few flowering trees I do see when driving to work.  The most prominent species of magnolia listed actually shares part of its Latin name with the state I live in:  Magnolica virginica (common name:  sweetbay magnolia).  And sure enough, I definitely recognize and pass these white flowers on a day-to-day basis (they are often confused with cherry blossoms, but those are entirely different - and much less common in Virginia!  That said, another Google search did show a few places where one could find cherry blossoms there...)

[Shiloh Adlar]

When I left this morning, I noticed some trees alongside one of the interstate frontage roads that had white blooms on them. I have no idea what sort of trees they were, but they were really pretty to look at. I had never really noticed them before. As far as flowering shrubs, I think I mentioned them in a previous post, but I did see another one, that I do not think I mentioned the other day, but this one had a bunch of purple blooms on it, kind of like droplets. I don't even really know how to describe them. A few trees in the area have some pink flowers on them, which I really like considering their pink, but for the most part, we do not have a lot of trees and most of the flowers I have seen are on shrubs or in "gardens" outside of the major buildings to add some landscaping.

[Prof. Tarma Amelia Black]

We're all done with the bonus Diamonds for Week 4  - but you can still participate in the discussion until the end of the month and earn some lovely Diamonds.