Cherry blossom, don’t you just love how it bursts forth at the end of winter, piercing the grey skies in defiance with their lush pink or white bunches of blossom. I have a lovely pink one in my front garden, but Sophie doesn’t, so when Spring comes, we go off on a blossom hunt. This year Sophie found out that Alnwick gardens have an orchard of over 300 Tai Haku cherry blossom trees, the biggest in the world apparently.
The story of the Tai Haku is lovely. Back in the day, a chap called Captain Collingwood Ingram, was obsessed with cherry blossom trees, and learned so much about them that in 1926 he was invited to give a talk to members of the Japanese Cherry Society, where he was shown a painting of a superb cherry with huge white flowers, which, he was told, was sadly extinct. But Ingram wasn’t an expert for nothing, he recognised the tree in the painting as being the same as a tree he had seen in a Sussex garden. As the tree was on it’s last legs, he hot footed it over there, took several cuttings from it, and today all Tai Haku trees in the world are descended from those cuttings. He re-introduced it to Japan in 1932.
The Duchess of Northumberland (who owns and developed the gardens as well as Alnwick Castle – Hogwarts to my American pals 🙂 )has added 50 double seated swing seats to the orchard, and it’s just fabulous. When we got there a carpet of daffodils covered the grass under the trees. SO many photographs, hard to choose, but here are some of my favourites of the day
Of course there’s much more to Alnwick gardens, the orchard is just a small bit of it, so stay tooned for the rest of our day there.
All pictures can be clicked on to get the embiggened and embettered experience 🤪
Gorgeous!!
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Thanks Sue.
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😊
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Beautiful. ☺❤⚘
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Thanks!
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You are Welcome ☺❤
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Wow!looks amazing!thanks for sharing x
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Xx
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Haha..that looked like a generic cut andpaste blog comment from me it…I was reading a book at the same time…but truly..it looks like a great experience and its now on my list x
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” Thanks for sharing”cracks me up 😂😂🤣🤣
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I know!Who was that person?… #invasion of the bloggysnatchers 😀 😀
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🤣 it’s ok, reading you and bloggy you were jostling for dominance and caused a temporal anomaly. 🙃
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Haha…thats it exactly Doctor Fraggle… 😀
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So these trees are not just beautiful but also had a great history😀
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Yes, I love stories like that. Cheers Missis.
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Have a great day dear☀️❤️
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Oh, thank you. Nothing beats an English garden especially when one lives in Arizona.
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Thanks Cindy
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I’d love to see a picture with a whole load of folks on the swings, maybe in period costume, or hells angels, or hippies, or shut up Eddy 🙂
We started picking our cherries this week, but it is rare a basket makes it back to the house 🙂
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No I bet, they’re too yummy to save for Ron. 🙂
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A blossom hunt sounds awesome!!!😀💘 Great post, Lovely Lady!❤ When I first read this, I thought it said hunting for bousums! Bahahaha!🤣
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Out of the sewer Book’em!! 😀 😀
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Hehehe! I can’t help myself sometimes, Waffles!🤣
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Spectacular stuff, FR. Cherry blossom in all its glory. 🙂
Best wishes, Pete.
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Thanks Pete, shame it only lasted 6 days this year.
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Beautiful pictures!!! I wish we had more cherry blossom trees around here.
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You could plant one 😊
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I’ve already been trying to convince my man of that for a while… We’ll see if I win. 😉
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Withhold his conjugals until he says yes 😂🤣
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You are one smart lady! 😆😉😉🍻💖
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Stunning photos, as usual. Loved your intro, too. I visited Alnwick gardens a few years ago – amazing place – need to go back…
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Always so much to see there!
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These are amazing pictures! What a beautiful place!
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Cheers MB!
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I love that first photo! So pretty!
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Just gorgeous
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Thanks Alex.
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A wonderful story with excellent photos to go with it. Well done as usual.
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Thank you N-man.
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We have to make do with apple blossoms here, but it’s such a wonderful surprise when they finally burst forth. I love the scene you’ve captured here.
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Thanks Jay.
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Blossom is so beautiful. There’s some magic to them.
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Yes, so short lived though.
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Yes, very bittersweet.
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Wow! Look at all of them. Washington DC’s got nothing on those! I love that sprawling building in the distance on the first one.
It’s downright magical. Thanks for sharing this adventure, Fraggle! hUGS.
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Cheers Teagan hugs back.
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[…] Part 1 HERE […]
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Absolutely stunning!
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Thanks!
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Gorgeous 🙂
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[…] 1 HERE. Part 2 […]
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Amazing! I would visit just to see this (and that story was awesome, too).
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Thanks Sarah 🙂
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[…] 1 HERE. Part 2 HERE. Part 3 […]
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Wow, the orchard is magical in full blossom – like something out of movie! Great captures.
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It was like being on a movie set! There should be one.
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