The pears and the early-blooming apple trees have now reached petal-fall. The plum flowers have been gone for over a week. The mid-season-blooming apples are still flowering, and the late-bloomers are beginning to open up. In anticipation of more rain and the accompanying threat of fire blight infection, Cammy and I sprayed Blossom Protect again on the open-flowering apple trees. We finished up as it was getting dark. Earlier in the day we set up the irrigation in the Nursery. The young trees want (and need) lots of water, more than we want to carry by hand.

Spring is a good time to admire the diversity of flower and leaf colors as well as tree-forms. One of my current favorites is Oporto. It has deep, rich-red foliage and red flowers. The tree is wide-spreading. Our scionwood came from the USDA Geneva collection (PI 136020) in 2016. I first learned about Oporto at the Arnold Arboretum in Boston, although that tree may now be gone. As I recall, it was large-fruited so may not have even been the same cultivar. Despite the small (2.5 cm) fruit of the Geneva Oporto, I love the tree. The foliage and flowers are both the perfect shade of red, and the small fruit may be usable in cooking and cider. Small fruit is not a bad thing.