Festival of the Trees 21 Orchards and Fruits Edition Now Online at Orchards Forever

This month’s Festival of the Trees 21 is a special fruit and orchard edition hosted by Peg at Orchards Forever. You’ll be sure to enjoy this delicious selection of unique and tasty blog posts. Peg’s thoughtful edition of the Festival of the Trees is well worth the read. Fortunately for us, today’s Festival begins on a Sunday. Enjoy a lazy stroll through the orchards!

To volunteer to host a future festival, and to submit blog posts to future festivals, visit the Festival of the Trees coordinating blog.

Freezing Rain in the Trees

Now, I realize that freezing rain is downright dangerous for driving… but it is SO GORGEOUS when it paints every needle and twig with icy crystals! Pictured here is a Pin Cherry (Prunus pennsylvatica), and an Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus), two of my dearest Pennsylvania friends. [Again, remember you can always click pictures to enlarge for a better view].

The Festival of the Trees 18 is Sprouting at Riverside Rambles

Larry Ayers of Riverside Rambles has spared no small effort in composing this month’s Festival of the Trees 18 - November Arborea. Watch it grow! There’s plenty to play with already online, and Larry is composing (composting?) the rest as we speak.

The Festival of the Trees is a monthly blog carnival featuring posts about trees and forests from blogs across the Internet. Check out the Festival of the Trees coordinating blog to learn how to share your own submissions, or volunteer to host a future festival at your blog!

Autumn Rains

The Philadelphia area is being blessed with rains this week, and the Farmer’s Almanac suggests that we may have snow in our near future. Certainly the deer are aware of the coming cold: they’ve all donned their grey winter coats.

With the late summer, Philadelphia is still seeing lots of color in the trees. In fact, Jesse Milton of the Trees News blog has observed some excellent autumn color in Atlanta, Georgia. Soon Pennsylvania will be grey and brown all over, with small patches of pink and orange where the young beech trees still hold their leaves (a process called leaf marcescence – some oaks and other trees do this too).

Today’s images include two staples of the local winter bird diet: pin cherries (Prunus pennsylvatica), and multiflora rose hips (Rosa multiflora). As the cold sets in, these tiny fruits will be stripped from every branch by a variety of small birds. These small birds constitute much of our passing winter color (unfortunately birds, unlike trees, can fly away from my camera).

Until then, enjoy the show – Pin cherry trees are one of my Pennsylvania favorites.

Green Summer Pin Cherries

Anita Marie Moscoso recently commented that pumpkin plants in summer remind her of the autumn that is soon to come. Being a fellow autumnophile (and all-around-pumpkin lover), I know precisely what she means.

These pin cherries (Prunus pensylvanica) are another echo of the future: when the tired summer finally breathes her last, these cherries will sing the autumn into splendor with the first bright colors of the season. Also called the Fire cherry or Bird cherry tree, these small, colorful trees are among my favorite early Pennsylvania discoveries.

Blossoms on Pin Cherry Trees

The buds are just about to open on this pin cherry tree (Prunus pensylvanica) outside my kitchen.

Festival of the Trees: Reminder

You still have plenty of time to submit your blog posts to share in the Festival of the Trees 6. If you would like to learn more, contact me at jadeblackwater [at] Brainripples [dot] com, or visit the Festival of the Trees coordinating blog!

Also, it's always a great idea to plant trees, and according to the article mentioned at North Country Maturing Gardener, Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai thinks so too. Of course, Wangari Maathai has always been a strong supporter of tree planting!

What's that? You want more pin cherries?

I can’t help it – I just adore the pin cherries! They brought some of the first glimpses of autumn color this season, and they continue to brighten my days.

Here I was this morning, trying to comb through the overload of pictures I have to share with you, and what did I do? I took my camera out for my morning walk, and came back with another 150 images to work with! Sheesh.

I couldn’t decide what to share from the morning, so I figured I’d just give you some pin cherries (Prunus pensylvanica) for a Friday smile. All the lovely rain from last night gave us a beautiful misty morning - perfect for a walk in the woods.

Remember my thoughts on the “Pennsylvania Red” from when I first moved here? Autumn only reaffirms the natural expression of red in this land.

More to follow!

Happy New Moon, and Happy Autumn Equinox!

These are images from my morning walk today. The bucket is filled with the black walnuts I collected yesterday afternoon, and there’s more where these came from!

Happy Autumn to all those in the northern hemisphere, and Happy Spring to everyone in the southern hemisphere!

Rain on Pin Cherries

As I mentioned last week, I have loads to share with you as the trees prepare for their big show!

For now, enjoy this shot of pin cherries from last Friday during some of that beautiful, gorgeous, delicious rain we had.

First Colors of Autumn

The pin cherries are the first trees to give us autumn colors at the farm with their ripening berries. Yesterday I saw the first few trees turning their leaves - we have some exciting days ahead here at Arboreality!

J'aime l'automne!!

Of birds and trees

I’m pretty sure that this is an abandoned bird’s nest, as I have found many similar little nests in the thickets and young trees around the area. This one is located just outside one of my porches, and I am hopeful that the builders will return!

Outside my writing window, there is a lot of bird activity in the supposed-Eastern white pine. Among the bright and the beautiful who roost here, I’ve taken a real fancy to my newest neighbors: a pair of doves.

Now, I’m no ornithologist, but at least I know an eagle from a seagull. While this lovely couple is not the cliché white dove, they have the mannerisms, shape, and coo of doves with which I am familiar. I suppose that until I get myself a book, I can’t say for SURE that they are doves.

In Seabeck we had some amazing doves whose wings crack-crack-CRACKED when they flew about. I could count on seeing them perched on hemlock tops around my house before the sun broke the treeline each morning. As soon as I made too much noise, off they’d fly – crack-crack-CRACK!

The two outside my window arrived a few days ago, after the snow melted. They come by at the same time each morning – around 10 after six – and sit on the same branch. There they preen, coo, twitter, flutter their wings, perform a little affectionate “beaking,” and occasionally get in a little practice with the ol’ one-on-one.

I’m trying not to hope so hard as to scare them off, but today when I saw them playing in the upper branches, I started to get REALLY excited that they might have settled on my tree for their nest-to-be! I should go scatter some of my comb leavings and dog-fur out there just in case!