Spring - Llanblethian Orchard in bloom

Spring in the orchard is a magical time. After the cold, dark winter months everything bursts into life.

The grass shoots up, trees explode into flower, myriad insects emerge and birds begin to build their nests.

The sight of the orchard in Llanblethian in full bloom is a wonderful sight. The air is heavy with the gentle smell of apple and pear blossom. A faint hum of insects visiting the flowers fills the orchard.

Our orchard is quite biennial in nature. One year the trees produce a huge crop, the next they rest. This year is the ‘on’ year. As you can see from the photos below  it looks like we will have a good harvest this autumn.

Fingers crossed the blossom sets now. Late frosts are the bane of perry trees as it can kill the flowers / young fruit. This year the blossom is early so heres hoping for good weather!

On an aside, the giant yellow huffcap tree covered in flowers in the photos really pleases me. It was planted in 2009 ish as quite a large tree and didnt flower at all until last year. I guess it’s making up for lost time!

closeup perry flower pink stamens
Perry Pear flowers closeup
Brandy perry pear in flower. Near Cowbridge South Wales
Brandy perry pear in flower
yellow huffcap branch closup of flowers cowbridge
Perry Pear flowering branch
Compact perry pear tree flowering in Llanblethian orchard
Compact perry tree in flower
pheasant in Llanblethian Orchard
Pheasant roaming the orchard
Gwhelog in flower cowbridge south wales
Gwhelog perry pear in flower
butterball flower closeup 2 cowbridge south wales
Butterball in Flower
Yellow Huffcap perry tree in flower cowbridge
Yellow huffcap tree in flower
looking up into perry canopy llanblethian orchards
Looking up into yellow huffcap canopy
Barnet in flower near cowbridge, south wales
Barnet perry pear in flower
profit flower closeup cowbridge south wales
Profit apple tree in flower
Gwhelog branch flowering cowbridge south wales
Gwhelog flowers
Tom Putt flowering branch in cowbridge south wales
Tom Putt flowering
butterfly on sloe bushes in Llanblethian orchard south Wales
Butterfly on sloe berries
Avenue of trees flowering in Llanblethian orchard
Avenue of flowering perry pears
Hoverfly visiting perry flower in llanblethian orchard
Hoverfly visiting perry pear flower
insect resting in gwhelog flower cowbridge south wales
Insect resting in perry flower
perry flower very close very pink stamens cowbridge
Perry blossom
Crab apple flowering - butterball - in cowbridge south wales
Butterball crab apple flowering