Blooming Early!

I've just been looking back through my posts in 2010 to see when the apple blossom appeared last year to find that I wrote about the plethora of blossom on 12th May.  This year I was photographing the trees in blossom on 17th April - almost a whole month earlier!


apple tree and morello cherry blossom

 I would put it down to the lovely April weather however as I recall the April weather last year was just as lovely; so what has made the difference - any thoughts?

crab apple blossom

And it wasn't just the fruit trees that were gorgeous.  We have only a couple of ornamental flowering cherries and they were lovely too.  To recall a favourite quote of the Handyman's: 'loveliest of trees the cherry now, is hung with bloom along the bow...' with thanks to A E Houseman.

ornamental cherry

Alongside the blooming trees we had a good show from the aubretia training over the low walls of the woodland borders - spring is definately sprung!

lovely aubretia

The weather here is still beautiful and sunny with bright blue skies, though over the past couple of days an easterly wind has picked up and brought much cooler air in with it.  So I'm not allowing myself to be tempted by the nurseries full of basket plants just yet, there's still time for a late frost - now, there speaks a real gardener!