Blossom time is wonderful, but behind it all lies our anticipation of the fruit that follows and "the satisfaction of our carnal appetites." That is the message of Christopher Lloyd, writing in a recent Country Life. The time scale differs, of course, from north to south and in other aspects. He takes us through the succession.
"First in the field" is the apricot, sometimes flowering as early as February! Well. And always against a warm wall. He can a ready see fruitlets forming. Why so rare, he asks? For, to him, apricots off your own tree are incomparable. (Never tried it, alas.) Next to blossom with him is the cherry plum: prunus cerasiferous. Growing to be a big tree, it makes a wonderful cloud of white and, he says, that from a distance it might be mistaken for a blackthorn. But it grows bigger, and may be less white than the wild tree or bush. In this country, anyway specifically in one Dublin garden, last year the tree gave a monster crop, and, in many years, crops steadily and well.
He goes on to blackthorn and relates how, when a child, he persuaded the cook to stew some and give them to his father at breakfast in lieu of his favourite fruit of the season: damsons. "Very nasty" was the parent's answer when asked how he liked them. Sloes have merit in two recipes; for making sloe gin, and as an additive to mixed fruit jellies or jams. Not too much sloe, though.
Peach? He doesn't think much of the blossom. Move on to the pear. In bloom "these trees are the most voluptuous of all." Leave the apple and go to the medlar and quince. He is fortunate in where he gardens, for he writes that they are both late to flower and thus "escape the frosts which threaten most spring fruit blossoms". He doesn't have to reckon with the climate of this island. For weeks, the quinces in Dublin and in a freaky frost pocket in north Meath have held their pinkish flower buds upright, waiting to open out into lovely white, delicate blossom.
Even if they come out in early June, the Meath lot have every chance of being blitzed by frost. (Leaving fruits aside, comparatively sturdy little red oak plantlets, just having started into their second year growth, with small leaves breaking out, had these reduced to powder by frost.) Lloyd extols his own quince tree, but admits it is "a maddeningly uncertain cropper."
More maddening if you never, in seven or eight years, see the eventual odd blossom turn to a fruit which grows to maturity. And, by the way, on this island again, the mulberry trees have hardly awakened. Not a leaf yet. Like Napoleon's favourite type of general, Mr Lloyd must be not only very good, but also lucky.