Wild Cherry Flowers

Spring is now in full swing around here, and the trees are busting with new growth. Leaves, and, in the case of this wild cherry, flowers are making their presence felt.

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Flowering early - before even its leaves are fully emerged - the wild cherry is a common sight at the roadside, standing out from the bare branches and budding leaves of less enthusiastic trees. This picture of wild cherry flowers was taken late on an April afternoon, with the sun gleaming off the dazzling white flowers and fresh green leaves.

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The two wild cherry trees pictured above clearly show how striking a contrast their beautiful early flowers are to the other trees in the image.

PP

Spring Apple

Even the ancient apple trees in my garden are getting in on the act, with the first signs of new leaves appearing just a few days ago.

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It always amazes me that these gnarled old specimens are still alive, having been seriously neglected for many, many years. And yet every year, without fail, they muster the strength to put forth new leaves, new branches and an acceptable crop of both cooking and eating apples. With a little judicious care and attention, I'm hoping that these venerable apple trees will be going strong for many years yet.

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Spring Willow

This Willow tree was looking particularly fine in the spring sunshine when I visited a local park last week. All around it, new growth was bursting forth, and there was a general sense of things happening as the growing seasons get properly under way.

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As you may be able to guess from the background to this willow tree picture, there are many, many more trees in this small park, and almost all of them are now sprouting new leaves. I'll post a few more of their pictures over the next few days, and maybe go back to the park for more pictures - it might be interesting to see how the trees progress throughout the year.

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Spring is Here

This is officially the first week of spring, when growth begins anew after the long winter rest, and it certainly seems like the local trees, at least, are raring to go. Wherever I look, I see sings of life, new leaves sprouting on branches that were bare only a few days ago.

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Naturally, I've been grabbing pictures whenever I've had the opportunity, and I'll be posting a few here over the next few days. This was one of the first spring tree pictures of the year, taken earlier in the week than the others and showing vigorous new growth set against a brilliant blue late afternoon spring sky. Oh, and a dove, I think, from the limited amount of it that I can see nestling amongst the branches - it was so well concealed that I didn't notice it at all when I took the pic!

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Autumn Leaves

And this is where the leaves from those bare branches in the last two tree pictures went - an orange and yellow carpet of autumn leaves, turned to gold by the early morning sun, spread out on the grass between tree trunks.

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Just goes to show that fallen leaves on the ground can be as beautiful as their tree-dwelling colleagues, especially when the light catches them just right. Plus, of course, in autumn, there's nothing quite like the sound and sensation of walking through drifts of fallen leaves - hard to do that while they're still on the branches!

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Autumn Trees

Another view of the same autumn trees pictured in yesterday's post, with a little more emphasis on the leaves still on the trees and providing such a dazzling display of early morning colour.

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The deep blue sky, impaled upon the bare branches at the top of the tree, contrasts sharply with the blazing golden fire of the Sycamore leaves a little lower down, and suggests that, although summer is long gone, autumn hasn't yet given way to the cold, dark days of winter.

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Tree Pictures

Trees are wonderful things. Their endless variety of shapes and colours are all around us, and yet these beautiful plants are so often ignored, or relegated to background details of our busy lives.

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Here, I'll be doing my bit to rectify that by posting pictures of trees of all kinds, shapes and sizes, taken at all times of year. To get the ball rolling, I've included a picture of several Sycamore trees, taken just after sunrise one morning late last autumn. Their leaves had already turned to a stunning shade of yellow / gold, and the rising sun set them ablaze with stunning colours.

As you can see, many of the leaves had already fallen, leaving stark, bare branches reaching upwards towards the clear blue sky.

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