Saturday, February 5, 2011

Pear-Tree Polka Dots

I went out into my garden yesterday to find a large portion of it covered in random white polka dots.

At least, that's what they looked like.

They were scattered everywhere and piled up in small drifts:

Pao sees where they're coming from:

The ornamental pear trees in my neighborhood are in full bloom:

We share two of them with different neighbors, and their lush beauty enhances all of our gardens:

From a distance, the trees look like an explosion in a mattress factory. Up close, you can see how very delicate they are.

This is the only flowering tree in my garden. We don't have forsythia or crape myrtle or any of those other harbingers of spring. So to celebrate winter's grip losing its hold, I like to trot a few branches of the pear tree inside the house.

There, they really shine. Against a pale wall, you can see how spare and beautiful each branch is:

The green flower frog looks terrific at the bottom of my big, glass vase and echoes the tender green of the leaves and stems:

Up really close, ornamental pear tree blossoms begin to resemble showy azaleas:

And I see another level of polka dottiness: The anthers make tiny black dots against the white petals:

So pretty!

Here's most of my (extremely casual) arrangement in the glass vase:

Valentine's Day is around the corner. Are you ready?

1 comment:

  1. Amazing where one can find polkadots when one really looks! We used to have two ornamental pear trees, but they were never very healthy and we finally replaced them with something else that, sadly, doesn't bloom. I'm inspired to buy a similar large vase and hunt down something to put in it to bring the seasonal changes indoors.
    Nice!

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