I’ve been waiting for an ornamental crab apple tree (Malus) to flower ever since I spotted its deep pink buds. Now I am happy to share these with you.
You might think I have boosted the colour right up, but they are just as my iPhone interpreted the scene. They have been cropped and resized.
Just a few minutes earlier I had been admiring bluebells in the woods when a lady stopped to ask if everything was extra beautiful this year or if we were noticing more. It’s something I’m hearing (and reading) a lot.
I told her what I believed, but life being as it is, we can’t know for sure. If our eyes have been opened to beauty, let’s hope they stay open long after some semblance of normality returns.
HeyJude is asking us to share pictures of shadows. At first look, this series seems to be all about light, but shadows are adding atmosphere, particularly in the last shot.
Susan Rushton 
Those blossoms are a burst of joy. As to your concluding sentence…hear, hear!
I’ll be looking out for the apples later in the year – assuming it sets fruit. It would be a waste of all that blossom if it did not!
With light comes shadows, important for contrasts which you have highlighted well in this series. I love the colour of the blossom and the last one is perfect. Regarding the conversation I believe people rush around too much and don’t have time to notice what’s around them. Maybe some may have now, but for others I fear it will be business as usual when lockdown ends.
Please don’t be right about this Jude! But I fear you may be …
I took a completely different series of images inside the wood to share as the shadows, then I saw this on the way home which was more exciting. I seem to have shared a lot of trees and leaves lately. 🙂
It’s difficult to say. I imagine some will be looking for a different way, or will be more open to a different way, when and if it is possible for them.
Beautiful blossom and gorgeous colours 🙂
I went for a walk yesterday to a local beauty spot, I was only there two weeks ago but in that time everything suddenly seems to have sprung into life. Maybe the current ‘stay at home’ situation with fewer cars on the roads and less pollution in the atmosphere is making nature grow greener and brighter 🙂
It is certainly having an effect on our own lungs – and if on us, most likely so on them too.
Beautiful. Our crabapples bloomed last month and got hit by frost.
I’m sorry. My rambling rose buds are looking vulnerable at the moment, with overnight temps dropping to a degree or two above zero.
They might do okay as long as it doesn’t stay freezing for too long. Our temps got well below zero C.
An excellent point about eye-opening – and you have made your contribution.
This is another one we need sunglasses for. 🙂
I think I have always seen the beauty around us. (I’m an artist–which came first?) Seeing the flowering crab apples takes me back to living in Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia. Beautiful.
Oh – hard – the artist I’d say! No, the beauty!
Gorgeous. It really is a good year for apple blossom
It seems ironic that the flower shows are all cancelled when it has seemed to be such a good growing year so far.
Beautiful pictures! The blossoms have been so stunning this year, maybe because we have the time to appreciate them, maybe because we’re having an unusually warm spring! My azaleas and rhododendron have also been spectacular and, as an Acer grower, I’m bias in saying that they are spectacular this year too…
I love Acers too – they’re colour catchers, aren’t they?
Super cheery indeed! What a boost to the day! Those pinks are deliriously happy, as all can tell. The overlaps of the petals and the swoops of the leaves are like some crazy kaleidoscope, and certainly shadow is the master of that effect. Of course, there’s also something of strawberry ice cream about this pink, and that could possibly have something to do with how much I like it. Thank you!
Ice cream is something I have been craving lately. I have regarded it as a non-essential purchase and though I can’t claim not to have bought anything non-essential, it hasn’t made it high enough up my list. I also have promised myself an elephant’s foot as something to look forward to when life is much nearer to normal.
I’ve googled a bunch but can’t be sure about this “elephant’s foot” you’ve promised yourself. Enlighten me, please.
They are choux buns filled with cream and with a sticky icing on top. I used to like the ones with coffee icing. I haven’t had one for several decades, so far as I remember. They are big and rounded which is where the name comes from. I just have to hope the coffee ones have not gone the same way as the peach melba ice cream.
Wow. I thought I was hungry BEFORE I read this! They sound wonderful. If you are saying the peach melba ice cream is extinct and maybe those pastries are too, that would be too sad.
A crab apple tree was the first tree we planted in our Harrogate garden when we moved there. The blossom, the visual impact of the fruits, and then after that, that wonderful ruby coloured jelly for the winter months. Perfect.
Sounds wonderful!
It was. It astonishes me how many people have them purely for decorative reasons. At last 60% of our motivation was using the fruit.
We’re not that far along in our spring yet, which is good because Friday night/Saturday morning it’s going to get down into the 20s.
Gosh, that’s colder than us. I’m glad your plants are wary enough to wait! We have just been scraping along a degree or so above freezing, which is good, because my rambling rose is covered in buds which would probably be damaged.
Beautiful blossoms! I’m certain we are appreciating beauty more than before and certainly have more time to enjoy it. To a greater extent, it seems much more valuable and we’re not taking it for granted.
I think you’re right. I remember a few weeks ago stopping in my tracks to see one of the first single, common daisies I saw growing wild in a lawn, transported by its prettiness. I am sure I’d have been less open to that in other years.