The hidden orchard, a secret paradise

I love orchards and have a dream of owning one...

And now I have found a secret, hidden orchard.
It is a small field that has been planted with a variety of trees. I made my first visit of this year and it is exploding with life, light and colour.

The gate is locked but I'm afraid I sneak in anyway. I walk gently and cause no harm.

Some of the trees are in full blossom, some yet to come into bud

It is wild and overgrown,

I need to wear my wellies as the nettles are already knee high

It was a bright sunny day and I felt almost breathless with excitement as I looked up through the petals to the clear blue sky

Wherever I looked, it was beautiful! There were poplars by the river

White blossoms-

pale pink cherries

Sugar pink cherries with their ballerina-like tutus

And crab apples, a still deeper crimson.

I wandered around, content and absorbed.

The sun shone warmly through the new leaves

The sweet scent of flowers filled the air

Winter seemed a distant dream.

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now



I have a passion for blossom. Every year I watch for the first buds to break





Blackthorn is the first and this year it has been particularly sumptuous.

But today I'm talking of the apple, the plum and the cherry blossoms that froth and spill over the trees in such abundance that it makes me gasp with delight every Spring.

I love blossom so much that I decided to spend a whole day looking at and photographing all the varying hues, from pink so dark it's nearly purple-

Through the beloved (and slightly kitch) double pink cherry of my childhood-

One grew in our road in front of our house. I watched the tree through all the seasons.

This slightly more elegant pink cherry is so fluffy it that makes me think of a ballerina's tutu-

Whereas this one is delicate and ethereal

I have always wanted to own an orchard, so apple blossom is a particular favourite-

Maria " went on to the door in the east wall, unlocked it, and went through into the orchard. She had not been there for some while, and she gasped with delight when she saw the pink-and-white blossom that made a canopy fit for a queen over her head"
 ('The Little White Horse' Elizabeth Goudge)

A. E. Houseman's famous poem speaks for many in finding perfection in the single white cherry



Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough,

And stands about the woodland ride

Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,

Twenty will not come again,

And take from seventy springs a score,

It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom

Fifty springs are little room,

About the woodlands I will go

To see the cherry hung with snow.

I have very happy memories of playing with the fallen cherry blossoms at my primary school.
Two tall, beautiful trees shed their flowers on the bank at the edge of the playground. All springtime we would collect these and make nests in the grass full of the choicest petals and blooms and then thread these onto long blades of grass making necklaces that were much treasured.

Perhaps the double white cherries are a little over-the-top in comparison

But I love them too!


As I walked through the orchard

I have tried through my photographs to capture the abundance of blossom-

 the individual beauty of a single bud-

and the subtle patterns and grace of the flowers

What fascinated me was the subtle variation of colour from pure white to deepest pink.

I decided to try to create a piece of art from my photographs to show this.

It has turned out far to big for me to be able to photograph it successfully...

I added the words " Fifty years are little room" spread out throughout the piece.

It nearly works, I think!