We are lucky to have a few blossom trees in our garden and the vicinity and today the moment I’ve been waiting for began. The beginning of the annual bloom, which also means the weather is on the turn.
Out the back in the far corner over Tom’s studio, there’s a tall, russet-leaved, white-pink flowered, purple fruiting Prunus of some kind – Prunus Cerasifera ‘Pissardii’ perhaps – which looks like it’s been there for at least three decades. This is the earliest flowering specimen in our garden and today did not disappoint with one and then two and suddenly a whole tree full of the most exquisite, pink-centred blooms and emerging red-brown foliage as a longed for day of warm, shining sun did its thing.
Across the lawn, a magnificent, wide-branched magnolia that looks like it was planted around the same time, provides sculptural interest and a natural climbing frame as well as the foundation for the most spectacular mass unfurling of cup-shaped pink blooms – usually around 21 March but last year it was much earlier. I hope it doesn’t come out too soon though as often the petals get blown off as soon as they appear.
There’s also a couple of young white-blossomed cherry trees suddenly blooming in our neighbours’ gardens, which look like saplings of the large cherry tree next door but one. I first noticed these last year but a year of annual growth has really spurred them on and they now look like they are here to stay. This is particularly lovely as we lost a similar cherry tree a few years ago to rot, the gnarled trunk of which now creating a focal feature of our newly established pond.
Up front we have a rowan or mountain ash (Sorbus acuparia) with its clusters of musky-scented cream flowers that mature into bright red berries in late summer. While on the other side of the path, its large protruding roots encircling the footprint of our pond, there’s a wild service tree (Sorbus torminalis) – a once common but now rare specimen that can signify ancient forest when found in the wild, although this one was definitely planted according to my husband and our Tree Protection Order. Must look into this again and write down the dates.
As soon as the blossom starts to appear in our garden, I also know that trips out – to exercise, to the shops and soon to school (hurrah!) will be furnished with a similarly uplifting succession of springtime joy. Heading up to The Flats there are rows of large lime trees that produce the prettiest white-green linden flowers plus a favourite crab apple tree; in various front gardens, yellow-petalled winter jasmine gives way to similarly sunny forsythia and mimosa; and on The Flats there will be giant blooming cones on the horse chestnuts, creamy-pink hawthorn and the odd escaped cherry tree mingling with catkins of willow, birch and alder.
We’re lucky to have such a proliferation of urban and natural plant life in our local area, with gardens and street planting helping to create green corridors between larger green spaces such as parks – vital for a range of pollinators and other wildlife as well as rejuvenating for humans.
It was therefore great to hear today that this experience can be shared more widely as The National Trust pledge to plant groves of blossom trees around the UK, emulating the ancient Japanese tradition of hanami celebrating cherry blossom as the first sign of spring.. At the heart of the project is a new London Blossom Garden, which will be created in the Olympic Park in homage to all those who have lost their lives during the pandemic, remind us of how we all stood together and to signal hope in its aftermath. Circles of trees including cherry, hawthorn, crab apple and plum will also be planted in other cities around the UK.
With one consultancy firm reporting 295 deprived urban neighbourhoods across Britain situated in ‘grey deserts’ with no trees or accessible green space, hopefully blossom will also be headed there. I’d certainly work with my community to get the trees out there so hopefully Newham Council are working with the National Trust and partners such as Historic England to bring blossom to the Olympic Park but also beyond. With the Woodland Trust also running a free trees scheme for schools and community groups (they sent out over 1 million trees last year) there’s no reason why all our streets can’t be blooming lovely. I’ll be keeping my eyes to the blossoming sky and my ears to the ground.