The ancient magic of apple blossom time

To misquote the old Andrews Sisters song about a May Day wedding: “I’ll bewitch you, in apple blossom time.” Apple blossom has powerful emotional, cultural and ecological significances, each of which is inseparable in these woozily psychedelic days of spring.

There’s a small apple tree planted a few years ago behind the windmill on top of the hill. It’s grafted from a scion cut from a hedge apple about half a mile away as the crow flies, selected for its beautiful blossom. This simple act encapsulates centuries of cultivation and the ancient art of growing the branches on one tree on the roots of another.

It’s a wonderfully earthy muck and magic kind of civilisation that travelled with skilled growers from the original fruit forests of the Tien Shan mountains on the border of China and Kazakhstan to become the wonky-treed orchards of Shropshire.

We have lost so many old orchards here that this young tree, grown like its parent to stand at the edges of cultivation, becomes an important gesture, hopefully encouraging future planting of fruit trees in the landscape.

Apple blossom certainly vies for AE Housman’s title of “loveliest of trees”, which he gave to the wild cherry. At this time of year there is also something “lovely” about the way elm trees suddenly stand out by throwing their pale flaky flowers into the air, which will drop like pistachio confetti soon, as if to confirm Mark Twain’s quote that reports of their death have been greatly exaggerated. Where there’s life there’s hope, but where there’s flower there’s something much more numinous, and that’s the magic of spring.

After a blatter of hail, the ground under oak trees was littered with little bouquets of bronze leaves and catkins – a secret from the treetops. Maybe I’m too impatient, but ash trees are later coming into leaf this year and their flowering feels subdued. Ash are a worry these days.

Bumblebees have found the little apple tree’s blossom on Windmill Hill and there is something like a wedding going on, nuptial rituals, bewitched while the sun shines.

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