Potting Shed Fantastic: Very Cherry

Do you ever sit at your computer with one hand on the mouse and the other tossing treats into your mouth? To suddenly realise you've scoffed the lot and you don't even remember doing it?! Yesss?!! That is exactly what I'm like with cherries. I get through a LOT of cherries.

So, you can imagine my delight when we discovered we had TWO cherry trees in our new garden! 

I know cherry blossom gets a lot of press. But, they have been the first plant in our garden that we've seen go through it's full annual cycle, it's like 'a year in the life of..'. And that's what I wanted to share here today, it's so magical!

From the delightful blossom of spring and these seemingly soft fluffy 'footballs' of flowers. 

Through to branches heaving with fruit and literally bending down with the volume and weight of them all.

 

All the way through to seeing the branches stripped bare. More often that not by smaller garden visitors, rather than me unfortunately. But I love feeding the local wildlife too, and who can blame those sneaky squirrels when the fruits are as plump, juicy and red as these?? :)

One lone cherry sitting in a tree...

Even still the greenery and remaining tree continues to bring colour, structure, shade to the garden and extra habitat to it's wildlife.

This is what gardening is all about to me. Nurturing and watching plants go through all the stages of life. Stages we take a lifetime to work through, plants get through all within one year! Excited with the prospect of new growth and shoots in Spring. Enjoying the beauty and exuberance of the tree in full bloom. Willing the small fruits to ripen and plump up as they grow. Feeding and gorging on the bounty. And then finally preparing and growing strong to survive the long winter and be ready for spring's fresh growth once more. Ever cyclical.

P.s. You can see more of our early spring garden here.