It's the season for my flowering crabapples. Yesterday the bees were taking advantage of the recent blossoms. In today's rain, they were few and far between.
Such beautiful color! Amazing what a difference in our areas of New England; only yesterday did we begin to see a blush of baby green and soft red buds on our trees. Our own apple trees are barely showing tiny leaf buds, let alone blossoms. Found a new (to me) flower/plant this week, alongside the marsh at the bottom of our hill. "Leatherleaf" is a low growing shrub that at first I thought was a low bush blueberry but its little white bell like flowers hung in rows, not clusters which initially puzzled me until I got home and looked it up. Thankfully it was an easy ID. When your copy of "Naturally Curious" arrives be prepared to devote at least an hour to just the first initial "skim through" as it is so chock full of interesting info. For those of us who have an interest in our natural world it's the mystery reader's equivalent of "a real page turner"! ~ gretchen
One of the joys of the connected world is being able to enjoy spring twice over. My blossom is all gone and baby fruit has taken its place so it is great to see blossom a second time around this year. Don't the bees love crab apple? I grow one as a pollinator for my fruiting trees and it is always a bee favourite.
Ya, I'm really looking forward to that book. Almost 500 pages!
Something similar to Leatherleaf that I've noticed here is Fetterbush. In fact, I'll need to give the local plants here a once over--perhaps I have misidentified. I just picked up a couple of photos on April 30th and will put one up this evening for our comparison.
Cool, Judith. Your Spring is going by while mine is happening while Gretchen's is yet to come.
Yes, they absolutely love crabapple! Today is again very rainy, but with patches of sun. The blossoms are not fully opened and there are not many bees. My goal is a movie of the tree covered with bees and the buzzing a low rumble. Maybe tomorrow...
Such beautiful color! Amazing what a difference in our areas of New England; only yesterday did we begin to see a blush of baby green and soft red buds on our trees. Our own apple trees are barely showing tiny leaf buds, let alone blossoms.
ReplyDeleteFound a new (to me) flower/plant this week, alongside the marsh at the bottom of our hill. "Leatherleaf" is a low growing shrub that at first I thought was a low bush blueberry but its little white bell like flowers hung in rows, not clusters which initially puzzled me until I got home and looked it up. Thankfully it was an easy ID.
When your copy of "Naturally Curious" arrives be prepared to devote at least an hour to just the first initial "skim through" as it is so chock full of interesting info. For those of us who have an interest in our natural world it's the mystery reader's equivalent of "a real page turner"!
~ gretchen
One of the joys of the connected world is being able to enjoy spring twice over. My blossom is all gone and baby fruit has taken its place so it is great to see blossom a second time around this year. Don't the bees love crab apple? I grow one as a pollinator for my fruiting trees and it is always a bee favourite.
ReplyDeleteYa, I'm really looking forward to that book. Almost 500 pages!
ReplyDeleteSomething similar to Leatherleaf that I've noticed here is Fetterbush. In fact, I'll need to give the local plants here a once over--perhaps I have misidentified. I just picked up a couple of photos on April 30th and will put one up this evening for our comparison.
Cool, Judith. Your Spring is going by while mine is happening while Gretchen's is yet to come.
ReplyDeleteYes, they absolutely love crabapple! Today is again very rainy, but with patches of sun. The blossoms are not fully opened and there are not many bees. My goal is a movie of the tree covered with bees and the buzzing a low rumble. Maybe tomorrow...