Featured Flower: Apple Blossoms

It’s April and time for apple blossoms!  As many of our local readers may know, everything seems to be blooming about two weeks early this year, and many apple trees are now covered with fresh green leaves.  But in honor of Sebastopol’s Apple Blossom Festival (and parade) this weekend, this week’s featured flower is the apple blossom.

Truly, all blossoming trees are a wonderful sight in spring, but to many who grew up in this area, apple blossom time is special.  There is nothing as romantic as an orchard in full bloom, filling the languid air with a subtle happy scent.  The five petal blooms, that mirror the five pip star of the apple, bespeak innocence as they are white, dusted with pink on the reverse (creating a pastel wash across the hillsides).  The petals are so delicate that they last only a few days in a vase, but seem to endure so beautifully on the branch, making us anticipate the fruit to come.

Before the grapes, there were apples.  And before them, hops.  And before that…perhaps another commercial crop occupied our physical and mental landscape.  But for me, and many others, apples and apple blossoms remind us of home, happiness, and hope.  It sounds corny and American, but it’s true.  For anyone who wants to feel like a child again, or has a romantic soul waiting to come out, I highly suggest a trip to west Sonoma County in April to sit among the apple blossoms.  Once you do, you will never forget it.  It is our Walk in the Clouds.