Topic: blossom

[johhnyco15]

took a couple of pics of my family pear and jubilee plum this morning how are your fruit trees coming along in this strange spring we are having

[johhnyco15]

and my pear my phone takes too big a pic to post two at once

[Digeroo]

My apple trees are getting ready.  But is due to get quite cold at night next week so I hope they manage to hang on a while.  If there is a frost while the flower is open it does not develop properly.  Though there are often a several flowers per bunch and one really only needs one fruit per station. 

[penedesenca]

Mirabelle/ cherry plum and peach are all finished, nectarine and apricot almost finished (although one apricot was wiped out by a sharp frost) plums and gage are now coming into their own with cherries and pears to follow shortly (fingers crossed next week doesn't stuff them all up) and apples are still very sleepy and not interested 

[Robert_Brenchley]

The Cambridge Gage is in full bloom, very late, and the apples, which would normally be blooming now, are showing no signs of it.

[artichoke]

My plum is starting to flower, also redcurrant and gooseberries, though perhaps they don't count as "blossom". My peach, which did well last year, flowered too early this year and I am not very hopeful of fruit.

Regarding frost preventing apple flowers from developing properly, fruit-growing relations of mine were briefly famous for growing the biggest apple in the world (it was in the Guinness Book until replaced by a Japanese Apple). It grew on a Howgate Wonder tree after a very late hard frost which killed off nearly all the flowers, yet two carried on to develop into gigantic apples. The biggest was officially weighed at the Marden Show, cast in bronze for The Big Apple (New York) and illustrated by me alongside a blue tit for scale. When we cut into the second biggest apple, we found it had developed no pips, which led to a lot of excited phone calls among apple breeders and biologists.

[artichoke]

Sorry, at the risk of being boring, I could not resist posting this in support of my story about the frosted apple blossom, in case anyone finds it interesting. It was written before we cut the apple open and found that it had grown without even being fertilised. (Cannot believe this was 19 years ago....seems like last year I was struggling with painting a bird....the apple was a doddle):

RECORD-BREAKING APPLE
Weighing in at 3lb 11oz and with a circumference of 21.25 inches, the apple, a Howgate Wonder, will enter the Guinness Book of Records as the biggest apple ever grown, beating the previous best by 7oz.

"I am amazed and delighted" said the apple's grower, Alan Smith, yesterday. "Our crop this year was cut by a third by the frost, so this is the one bright star in an otherwise dark sky.".

Mr. Smith, 56, grew the apple on a 17-year old tree on his family's farm at Laddingford near Maidstone, Kent. But it was only when he took it to the Marden Fruit Show at Detling, Kent, that he discovered it was a world-beater.

"This year, there was a very early blossom that was hit by the heavy frost", he said. "This thinned the fruit right out but it meant that those apples which did survive had a longer than usual growing season. We have nurtured this one, supporting it with a stocking net against the wind and the starlings. I heard the forecast for storms and high winds and I lost my nerve and picked it". Daily Telegraph, 24 Oct 97

[penedesenca]

Sorry, at the risk of being boring, I could not resist posting this in support of my story about the frosted apple blossom, in case anyone finds it interesting. It was written before we cut the apple open and found that it had grown without even being fertilised. (Cannot believe this was 19 years ago....seems like last year I was struggling with painting a bird....the apple was a doddle):

Do you still have the illustration? 

[johhnyco15]

things are really starting to blossom in the fruit plot

[artichoke]

<< Do you still have the illustration? >>

No, because it was commissioned. The family who grew the apple have it. I have hardly any of my illustrations. Those done for Kew and Edinburgh are automatically commandeered for their libraries. but I do have the originals of privately commissioned books, once they have been printed.

[johhnyco15]

might have some snow tonight on the sunshine coast so had to take drastic action  the covers are on