Archive for the ‘Spring Has Sprung’ Category

Spring Has Sprung

Wednesday, May 14th, 2008

“Spring Has Sprung”

Spring is here! The fresh scent of flowering trees and shrubs is in the air and all the flowering plants are in bloom, the song birds have arrived and are building their nests. Yes Spring has finally Sprung!

Pear Flower

The picture above is a close up of one of my pear trees in bloom. This tree goes back many years, it hasn’t produced really anything for fruit for quite some time. But that’s what happens when you don’t prune the branches to promote new growth or use any fertilizing program.

You never know, I might at some time be motivated to put this tree on a pruning and fertilizing program, but I think I will start by cutting this tree down forcing the dormant buds, which are just below the soil, to emerge providing new vigorous shoots.

Then again I might just enjoy the small amount of flower blossoms this tree produces every spring and take in the variety of song birds that enjoy perching in this tree.

You can also see I have a Baltimore Oriole below, that comes by every year when my Crab Tree is Flowering, helping itself to the sweet nectar the Crab Tree provides.

Baltimore Oriole Looking around

Here is another picture of my Baltimore Oriole, at one point we had three bouncing around in my Flowering Crab Tree.

Baltimore Oriole enjoying the spring weather.

Baltimore Orioles have a distinct sound, almost like a clear flute like whistle, either singly or in a varied series of 4 to 15. Many times you can hear these birds whistling away enjoying the warm spring weather.
Yes Spring Has Sprung!

I can hear the Baltimore Oriole a couple weeks before, my Flowering Crab Tree starts blooming, but I can never seem to see them since these birds are quite shy and are often hiding under thick cover.

If you look hard enough you might find them in tall Elm Trees and other tall Shade Trees.

Thank goodness for the Flowering Crab Tree, otherwise I might never see them.

We have just been noticing these bright beautiful creatures coming around the past two to three years.

Below is a Pink Flowering Dogwood and behind that is a European Beech Tree which always gets looks from people when they walk under the European Beech Tree. The tree is about fifty feet tall and has about a forty foot spread.

Every couple of years I climb up the Beech tree with a rope an saddle and prune out some of the dead wood and crossing branches.

Pink Flowering Dogwood

I love the Pink Flowering Dogwood, they start to bloom around the first to second week in May. The flowers last for about two to three weeks provided you don’t have any heavy downpours. This tree can grow up to about 25 feet at full maturity and have around a 15 to 20 foot spread.

The Spring fever has now ended and now it is time to get out there and start your backyard gardening.
Spring Has Sprung!

So come back soon because I’ll be posting an article on planning a vegetable garden.

But for now enjoy the above spring pictures.

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