24 Comments on “Today’s “Oh, Look, Spring” Moment”

1. We have these lining Brooklyn’s Fifth Avenue through much of Park Slope. As I cycled home from work yesterday evening, so many of their petals were being blown off by the wind that at times it looked like snow.

2. It’s been snowing here all day. I’m against it.

3. How about the smell of those pear blossoms?

4. Much nicer than mine. I knew yours would look great with all that sun. Take another pic when it looks like it snowed underneath, please.

5. does it stink something awful? we have some sort of pear trees in our yard and when they bloom in spring it smells like chemical fertilizer and the death of dreams

6. Sadly, these trees are also invasive.

7. In Atlanta, where it is a law that you must have at least two dogwood trees and a dozen azalea bushes in your yard, the pollen is insane in April. It covers your car like green snow. Here is the chart they put in the paper.

   Pollen count, the amount of particles in a cubic meter of air in 24 hours:

   0 – 30 Low
   31 – 60 Moderate
   61 – 120 High
   120+ Extremely High (if you have allegeries just move to Arizona for the next month)

   Today’s pollen count: 2351

   This is actually an improvement over last week, where it hit 5733: http://www.atlantaallergy.com/pollenCount.aspx

   It is pretty to see all the flowering trees, if you can see through your windshield.

8. Pretty!

   For me, the big sign of real, honest, go-ahead-and-swap-out-the-snow-tires proof of spring is when the forsythia blooms. And it is in full bloom around here.

9. We have these here in SoCal, though some blight or other seems to have killed many of them. Unless these are a different kind than I think, the blossoms aren’t scented and they don’t last long, nor do these bear fruit. Sure are pretty, though! Thanks for the pic.

10. Mike,
    
    It is pretty to see all the flowering trees, if you can see through your windshield.

    Same deal here in Durham, NC, although the worst seems to be over. The irony is that it is the pines and oaks that make the yellow air pollution. The flowers that you can actually see tend to hoard their pollen and stick it to the backs of passing bees.

11. RickRob:

    Must be a different kind. Pyrus calleryana ‘Bradford’ is stinky. Pretty, but stinky.

12. Yes, that sure is pretty. Pity I won’t be able to enjoy it WHEN MY BRONCHI SEAL SHUT.

13. @Nickp Bull City in the hou…er, I live in Durham too.

    Now that the clouds of pollen have receded, the time of the pollen worm has begun anew.

14. How beautiful. I love it when all the trees start to bloom, as it is hard not to feel young then. Here in the Northwest it is a festival of pink and white from the cherry and apple trees. Even on the darkest, cloudiest day, they seem to glow as though they are lit from within.

15. That is one impressive tree. The lawn around it will be white once it drops all those flowers. I myself love orange trees because they don’t flower as much and smell wonderful to boot. And they don’t get this big. I didn’t know that pear trees could get that big.

16. Popcorn tree!

17. “Not particularly hardy.”

    Indeed. I’m surprised yours has a complete crown considering the ice & wind we got this past winter. Our lone Bradford looks good because it’s partially shielded by our house, but our neighbors all have half-Bradfords in their front yards.

18. My parents’ Bradford (a bit south of you) split three or four times over the years, once with only a single branch left on the trunk. They do grow back remarkably fast, but hardy they are not. The last time it happened there was basically a stump left, and tree removal people wandering the neighborhood offered to take it out.

    They also have three Cleveland pears, not quite as nice to look at, but they haven’t blown down once in almost the same number of years.

19. The pear trees are exceptionally beautiful this year, if a bit early. It’s not fair, the maples and the fruit trees all spewing pollen the same week.

20. Mike @7: ih, uh, UH, WAAAA-CHOOO!!! (‘Scuze me.) You sure you don’t wanna leave Atlanta?

21. Our cherry tree is blooming mightily, and because it has been a goodly wet winter, we will have good cherries when they come in. (and we have not been hit by an April ice blast… which wiped the blooms and thus the cherries out a few years ago),

    They are tart pie cherries, and if we have a drought year they are so tart they are inedible. But this year they should be fine pie cherries, and I will pick, pit and freeze mighty batches of cherries for various desserts!

    My father planted pear trees at their farm house and they grew into might trees that made Bradford Pear trees (plentiful and annoying on the U. Kans campus) look puny and pitiful. And those trees did not break in an ice storm.

22. Not only do they stink for a short while each year, they topple over in the slightest breeze. I had a next door neighbor who had three successive Bradfords blow over in inclement weather, and got tired of replacing them.

23. Lovely photo. But just looking at it made my sinuses (sini?) cringe.

24. I’m glad your spring started with a blooming tree, because my spring seems to have started with what seems to be a two-week long coughing fest combined with itchy eyes and a head that seems determined to sneeze itself off my shoulders.
    But I like the road in this photo, it says to me: “Yes, there is this AMAZING TREE. . .but just WAIT till you see what’s behind door #2!”