_Apple Trees in blossom_

Wow! FIVE years already! :)) and how wonderful that you have apple blossom at last! That really gives me hope Lori...for my two ailing old trees which I am gradually renovating and hope to bring back to productivity! :))

That's wonderful Lori - it only seems a few weeks since everything was covered in snow!

Exciting to see your blossoms and the frog too :)
Your hanging basket is very pretty ...

Karen: I have no doubt that you will have the ancients in production very soon. As you can tell by the picture I have some pruning to do. (Good intentions to trim out the crown this spring early went without being accomplished.) too darn cold for my aging joints to be climbing ladders with pruning saws... it was in such bad shape the first spring that I decided to gamble and pruned it right in late spring. the apples were full of scab and worms. cleaned up and raked the area and got rid of anything that looked deformed or dead and I've been cutting down the weeds. The aroma is just wonderful.
Steragram: It is so amazing. our trees went from tight buds (freezing nights) to almost full leaf inside a week! Like everywhere else our weather has been schizo. This is our 24th of May holiday weekend and that's usually the start of the planting time... anything before this and you gamble with frost. I lost some of the lovely little sensitive ferns down by the stream to a late frost (was it only three days ago?) So fingers crossed I've been working the soil in the veggie bed this week and sifting compost.
Hywel: Thanks... I was surprised to find it at the grocery store... only $10! It will fill up a little over time I hope.
Keeping it in the greenhouse for a couple of weeks just to be on the safe side. Is that an epi blossom on your avatar?

It's a Rhipsalidopsis - Easter Cactus :)

I've been gabbing... I see you have a new blog, must take a look. It's hard to tell from the thumbnail. I had my epi cactus blossom last summer/autumn. It was a surprise as I have had it almost 4 years (at that point) and it showed no sign of blossom until I put it outdoors and (almost) forgot it! such lovely flowers on the easter/christmas cacti.

Yes those cacti have pretty flowers.
I've only got one Epi. Someone gave it tome as a cutting 2 yrs ago. It hasn't flowered yet.
Maybe I'll have to put it outside like you did.

I can take no credit for mine... I put it out and let the weather warm and water it. Perhaps it requires some maturity as well...? it took mine 5 yrs. hope the outdoors works as well for you as it did for me. I will be putting my epi outdoors after June 1st. don't think it would withstand a single digit overnight temp. things change so fast ... today it is actually HUMID! strange weather.

I hope you get some decent weather soon.
We are having a cold spring here in Wales. Nothing but wind and rain, and single digit temps over night.
I have put my cacti outside in cold frames but have to cover them up at night.
Christmas and Easter Cacti are still indoors :(

We are having the third day (in a row) of warm temps...yesterday it was actually uncomfortably humid and last evening we had a raging thunderstorm...there were tornado watch warnings for the county to the south-east of us! our seasons are a riddle. hope you get some warmth soon, Hywel.

Thank you. It's bitterly cold again today but the forecast said it's going to get warmer. We'll see ...

I hope you don't get hit by a tornado.

The heatwave has ended...they told us to expect snow/rain last night and the tornado watch was cancelled as the cold weather came back!... I'm getting dizzy from all the weather changes. If you don't like what you've got..wait five minutes! sunny today but COLD... only 2 degrees this am.

That's too cold for spring. It's starting to warm up here at last ...

Happy to see you are getting on well with your gardening of the lovely woodlands you bought some five years ago. Very rewarding to see your apple trees looking so pretty. Good luck with the weather too. It can be so unpredictable these days.

thanks Dorjac... Hope you are above the waterline...have been seeing weather patterns on the weather network that looks like a hurricane system in the northern hemisphere at the beginning of winter! can this be? hope you're not feeling the effects of the flooding. Not looking forward to spring if these weather extremes continue. If the buds get frozen again this year it will be the third year in a row without apples... (we had so few apples develop after the late frost this past spring that the bears and deer who depend on the wild apple trees have had a famine year.)

The south of England, which is tiny in compare with Canada, escaped inundation so far. Today the stream quite near to us was hammering down after a night of rain. Higher and faster than for a long while. It flooded in the eighties after a violent local summer cloudburst. This was at about 6 pinch points at local bridges. I notice the papers have gone rather quieter recently about extreme weather events. El Niño is said to be the likely cause of the jet stream shifting etc. Does this affect Canada? I hope your next gardening year is successful and that you have apples this time round.

yes, the Jet Stream is what brings us most of our weather as the prevailing winds are westerlies. It starts (as far as Canada is concerned) in the mid latitudes in B.C. and is variable..up and down the west coast, pushed by the temperature of the water in the equatorial pacific, and crossing the continent to dip down around the great lakes and bring us lots of snow. it brings us warmth or cold depending on how high it is latitudinally. the last two winters it has been very low and the polar cell has slipped down over the great lakes bringing us extreme cold and it doesn't let up when it's supposed to. BUT having said that: this year it's all about EN and the continental air flow is mostly from the south-west. I saw a weather map of the strange and huge disturbance that has brought all that moisture to the UK and Iceland and above zero temps in Greenland and the Canadian Arctic... it's related to the change or disturbance of certain currents in the north Atlantic... it looked like a hurricane.. it was that huge. weird and scary.