Spring comes regardless...

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D_W

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I moved into a neighborhood with relatively small houses (fear of mortgages hanging over my head). Small houses are older neighborhoods here and one nice thing about them is that the trees are mature. Across the street, there are huge maple trees and down the street, giant pinoaks (which I'm glad not to have - the tree man cometh at several grand a year for those folks).

at some point in the past, someone planted a japanese flowering cherry tree in my yard. These trees don't last long in my area (supposedly) because of low disease tolerance, and this one has had a split in its crotch for years. But it keeps on keeping on.

25-40 years is the expected lifetime, but it's scarcely changed size in the 15 years that I've been here, so I have no clue how old it is. I trim the wandering branches off of it now as it will fan out and then drop branches down below its canopy and whack people in the face. The wife likes it to look a little round. It's a little free delight each year.

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Many little blooms yet to open - it suddenly got cold last week, and the tree gets confused. If we get a few warm days, it'll go the rest of the way (and look doubly dense and colorful), and then in about a week or so, all of the blooms will come off as individual petals and it'll be everywhere on my street.

I took a closer picture of one of the little groups that's managed to open up (you can see the little tiny rose shaped bits in the background at the top of the picture - those are blooms yet to open. I guess it does its things bottom to top).

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Last year, the power line people cut an L out of the top front of it (I don't personally care what they do as long as the power stays on) - where I grew up, the power company was intolerant (and cable) of any foliage around lines. Here, they seem to let the lines go right through trees and only address it occasionally.

It's not an easy tree to keep round as it's soft and fast growing with the shoots - we call the things zooming out of the top "alfalfas". The mrs would like it to look like a geometry text book, but I try not to be so harsh with pruning, so those alfalfas will get removed this summer and they'll come again.
 
Just as a follow up - with some warmer days, the rest of the tree opens up. But it's a fight every year for ideal weather that it takes (early warming, no cold snaps) to get the blooms to open before the leaves get relatively large.

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I plan on replacing this tree when it finally hears about its life expectancy with another of the same. Not much into the planing and flowers kind of thing, but they're not that expensive - perhaps $150 for a 10 foot tree. Saved many times over by the fact that they can't get large enough to require an arborist.

We purchased this house in the winter 14 years ago. Whoever originally built it bordered the entire back with hibiscus, something we also had no clue would show up - and wonderful as long as you can tolerate bee traffic. The house is nothing to write home about (average house, well built, but not large), I won't tell you what 2000 SF of living space costs in the states if you're not in DC, NY or southern california, but it's generally possible to find a good livable house and nice patch of yard (1/4-1/2 acre) for 2 times household income.
 
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I will see your tree sir and raise you! (Or whatever they say in poker).

These trees are just amazing when in blossom.
 

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FANTASTIC....this must be what trekkies feel like when someone gives them the spock signal. =D>

I'm jealous that you managed to get full bloom before getting so much leaf.
 
Yes. We have four or five cherries in our western Japanese garden (under development). One of them blossoms in December and January. This one gets into full blossom, which takes about a week (the photo is from about 2 weeks ago just before it got to full blossom). The blossom comes on fully and lasts for about a week or so, then the leaves start to come out and the blossom starts to drop. We are in the middle of that now.

We have bee hives in our little orchard, and they are super busy right now, but this particular tree does not attract many bees for some reason. I suspect the pollen is too hard for them to reach. We have a couple of smaller cherries in our little orchard area and they are also in blossom and covered with bees. They are about 1o metres from the hives, so I suspect they are an easy travel snack (bees forage for a couple of miles apparently).
 
And this is the best we have in the cherry line, along the drive.

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We call them bird cherries, but I have no idea what the Linnean name is.
 

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If they are bird cherries, then the botanical name is Prunus padus. Can't really tell from that photo; if they are bird cherry, then they are going to be rather big, eventually, along that drive ...
 
AJB Temple":8saidjnj said:
Yes. We have four or five cherries in our western Japanese garden (under development). One of them blossoms in December and January. This one gets into full blossom, which takes about a week (the photo is from about 2 weeks ago just before it got to full blossom). The blossom comes on fully and lasts for about a week or so, then the leaves start to come out and the blossom starts to drop. We are in the middle of that now.

We have bee hives in our little orchard, and they are super busy right now, but this particular tree does not attract many bees for some reason. I suspect the pollen is too hard for them to reach. We have a couple of smaller cherries in our little orchard area and they are also in blossom and covered with bees. They are about 1o metres from the hives, so I suspect they are an easy travel snack (bees forage for a couple of miles apparently).

Same here - no bees. Everything else here brings the bees, but there must not be much in those blooms. I haven't seen anything go in them in 14 years. It's early here as far as pollinators go - never thought about not seeing them in the tree before and not sure how they pollinate.
 
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