Quite often, if you want your plants to burgeon, you need to cossett them into life by starting their lives off as seeds in a pot. Here are some Victorian plant pots from Harlow Carr Gardens that must have chivvied generations of plants into health and colourfulness.
For Becky’s #SquaresRenew
The feature photo today is of a cherry tree at Studley Royal, near Ripon. It’s known to be at least 325 years old. This is extraordinary. Cherry trees aren’t long-lived. Fifteen to thirty years is usually enough.
This tree though isn’t the star of today’s show. Here’s some cherry blossom from another local site, Swinton Park. It’s definitely past its best – for now. Blossom gone, and with any luck pollinated by early bees, the tree’s energy is focussed on translating the flower into this year’s fruit. It’s moving forward to the next phase. Come late June, we can perhaps enjoy some of those cherries it’s producing.
For Becky’s #SquaresRenew
Poor old Ripon Spa Baths. A hundred and twenty years old, and now – quite literally – put out to grass. We have a new Leisure Centre here in town now. These Edwardian baths are now surplus to requirements and up for sale. Meanwhile, doughty seedlings and saplings commandeer cracks in the mortar and gaps in the tiling: putting down roots that will let water in and begin to crumble brickwork.
The header image is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, Brian Shore.
For Becky’s #SquaresRenew
Every month, over at Fake Flamenco, Rebecca sets a poetry challenge, and invites her readers to submit a verse on a chosen theme, in a selected poetic form. This month, she’s played into the hands of Becky’s Squares challenge. She’s shared an image of another blogger whom I follow, Britta. It’s the one shown in the header photo: a pair of frogs definitely planning on renewing the blood line.
Here’s my doiditsu (four non-rhyming lines, syllable count 7-7-7-5). Why not join in? You have till tomorrow to submit your entry. The real joy is that Rebecca translates every entry into Spanish : there’s a special thrill in having your own words beautifully re-crafted as a poem in another language.
Bathing in their tiny pond,
frogs are croaking words of love:
dressing up in greenest lace
to tryst, woo, then win.
And – Why not? Let’s make a late entry for Debbie’s Six Word Saturday.
For many people – and dogs, a walk along the seashore is the very best way of clearing the cobwebs and giving the busy mind a good old spring clean. A renewal, in fact.
For Becky’s #SquaresRenew.
In the cold and wet of the last few weeks the lilac and laburnum flowers, like most things, has refused to do anything but remain tightly furled in tiny, hard little buds. This week, and almost overnight, they’ve all burst into ravishingly radiant and resplendent life.
For Becky’s #SquaresRenew.
I think Greylag Goose parents definitely keep their broods moving forward, renewing the blood line. These geese only moved onto our village ponds last year, but already they have had the effect of making ducks and moorhens move away, and ensuring that those few that remain aren’t able to raise their own babies to maturity. When it comes to protecting local wildlife, many of us here aren’t so keen on offering these geese much of a helping hand.
For Becky’s #Squares Renew
IJ Khanewala’s Bird of the Week
Take one felled tree. Give it another life. A boat. A house. Floorboards. There’s still a lot left. A table. Chairs. Cupboards. And still there’s more. Look what one woman was making with the tree’s detritus at a country fair last year. Simply spoons.
For Becky’s #SquaresRenew.
Poor Mrs. Pheasant. There she was, trying to renew the blood line and produce a clutch of eggs to grow into the next generation of pheasants. But a marauder found her eggs, and instead, made a breakfast of them, so that he (or she?) had the nourishment needed to set about producing the next generation of their own species.
At least this marauder was keeping body and soul together. We live in shooting country, and the countryside is crammed with pheasants, imported here in vast numbers simply so they can be the target of barely competent marksmen enjoying their yearly shooting break. Some dead birds find their way to the table via local butchers. Many corpses are quite simply … discarded.
This blackbird may have been luckier. Once hatched, the baby blackbird’s shell simply fell to the ground beneath the nest.
By the way, the featured photo is of male pheasants. Their female counterparts are somewhat dowdier.
For Becky’s #Squares Renew.
Today’s post for Becky’s Squares takes me to our nearby woodlands . Leaves are just emerging on the trees, a fresh acidic green. This delicate newness may be my favourite time of year for a walk in the woods. The trees are busy renewing, burgeoning, reconstructing, moving forward …
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
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