Slowly, very slowly, the earth lets out a sigh and the seasons shift. We see more flowers popping up each day, the air is starting to smell sweet and fresh and best of all, there is more daylight each day. Mum's cherry trees were full of pale pink fragrant blossoms for a brief week but a day of gusty winds has now left them bare again, save for a beautiful soft pink carpet underneath each tree. Was that enough time for the bees to pollinate? We'll find out if and when cherries start to appear.
I bought my first trees for our future orchard today. Although now I think about it the first trees I bought were the hornbeam trees three years ago for Lorenzo's grove, so this makes it my first fruit trees. Just to explain - after Lorenzo was born I knew I wanted to bury the remaining placenta under a tree in a place he could always return to. A search on Celtic tree astrology revealed his tree to be a hornbeam, Carpinus betulus, so now there is this beautiful tree growing on my parents' property. The remaining four trees are still waiting patiently to be planted as that intended grove while my parents decide what will happen in that part of the garden.
But back to the topic, I asked Mum along because she's the gardener par excellence and I'm a complete novice (read: reformed house plant killer). I wanted to start with an apple, a pear and cherry trees then she chose the varieties. On her advice I also bought a miniature nectarine tree; smaller trees being easier to pick, prune and look after. Even though it's a miniature it's already fruiting. If all goes well we should get at least 20 nectarines from a tree no higher than 50cm. Amazing! Let's see how many we get to eat this summer. For the next year or so they'll be living in pots in Mum's garden until the house is finished and we can start establishing the garden. I can hardly wait.
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