At the base of the little trunk, those are crushed brown eggshells to add calcium to the soil over time and because the slugs and snails can’t climb over them to strip the blossoms. Which they absolutely would do.

I finally thought to bend down to see if my newest apple’s flowers had any scent to them.

Like a gardenia. Ohmygoodness. How did I miss out on this before. Dainty and demure and needing to be sought out but when you did, what a reward, sweeter even than those on the Fuji.

My neighbor whom I’d planted it for happened to arrive home just then and I called over to her and exclaimed over the flowers with her.

She’d almost missed noticing them. She was as thrilled as I was. Have I mentioned I really like having her next door?

In the back yard: the irises nearly died of the drought but seem to be trying to make up for it now. They came with the house and have ebbed and flowed with the weather patterns over the years.

I haven’t seen them blooming like this in a long time, with more to come.

Writing this, I suddenly realize I didn’t bend down to see if they, too, have any scent–but then they’re not the novelty the columnar apple is so if there were, you’d think I would know by now.

And me, I went looking–again–through the stash for yarn for a hat that a preemie in the NICU could wear. Came up empty again…almost. Maybe…but I would think that adding color, rather than adding to the endless white there would be the thing. And it absolutely has to be washable. I wistfully held a ball of pulverized pearl/bamboo blend the color of those irises, so soft, so (and she needs this) warm, discontinued (because it was too expensive to produce) and thus a rare gem for the perfect little girl I wanted to knit it for.

But so needing delicate hand washing, which just wasn’t going to happen in the hospital.

I’ll keep looking.