Cape Photo of the Day - Photo #354

The Ramblewoods.

Cape Photo of the Day - Photo #343

I blew up my Aperture photo library on my Mac, so I'm uploading directly from my phone. I was down at the end of Green Holly this evening and thought this canopy of trees was appealing where it slopes uphill. The blue line is some reflection on my windshield.

Cape Photo of the Day - Photo #328

Up.

Cape Photo of the Day - Photo #323

I love these twisted pines alongside the library parking lot.

Cape Photo of the Day - Photo #322

A tree on Chestnut Tree eager for spring to come. I am just as eager, but instead, it looks like we may be in for our first significant snow of the winter. It's not clear what's in store for tomorrow...

Cape Photo of the Day - Photo #316

The big tree on the right was playing shadow puppet on this house.

Cape Photo of the Day - Photo #267

My beautiful Japanese Maple. It was just a bit past it's fall prime here but still blazing scarlet. There are only a couple of others that compare in the Cape. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Cape Photo of the Day - Photo #257

Eastern Shore cedars.

Cape Photo of the Day - Photo #164

Somehow I missed this tree getting cut down. I'm sure there was some practical or safety related reason for it's removal, but I'm so sorry to see it go! Kids loved to climb up the sloping trunk, and it was such a great place to perch. What a shame.

Cape Photo of the Day - Photo #69

The black locust trees are in bloom. Their clouds of white flowers can be easily spotted against the rest of the trees in the Cape canopy. The one in this picture is hanging out over the water.

They are lovely, but the trees can be a pain in the butt if you ever need to get rid of one. They have nasty thorns, and send up dozens of baby saplings when any attempt is made to eradicate them. Perhaps that is why they are called "locust". Actually, I think the word locust has something to do with the pods they produce, but I always associate it with the plague of thorny baby trees that invade when a locust tree is threatened.

Cape Photo of the Day - Photo #40

Thank you to whoever had the foresight to plant these glorious cherry trees at the shopping center. I only wish they were along a high traffic walking path as opposed to a high traffic road. If you have a moment to take a stroll beneath their canopy, it's well worth the detour. For a moment, you can imagine you are beneath the Yoshinos in DC. 

I think these might be Kwanzan Cherries based on a quick google search. What I know is that they are spectacular. By the way, this little grove makes a terrific shaded spot to watch the Strawberry Festival parade if it's a hot day.

Here's the view from the underside:

Cape Photo of the Day - Photo #36

Cue the dogwoods. The one in my yard is a beautiful coral pink color. It hasn't reached its full glory yet but very soon. I love dogwoods of all colors for their upturned flowers and lacy branches. They seem as eager to soak up the spring sunshine as we are.

Cape Photo of the Day - Photo #18

The latest trees to take center stage this spring are the Bradford Pears. They are like white clouds along the sides of the highways, and there are several impressive ones throughout the Cape. Here is a fine one on Chestnut Tree. Look familiar Becky and Mike? Hopefully we won't get any soggy or violent weather while they are blooming. They are prone to losing branches, or whole halves, when the weather places a burden on those bloom-covered branches. Let's hope the blue skies continue until the blooming is complete.

Postscript - Owner Becky tells me this tree did in fact split last year and that Richard's Tree Service was able to bolt and cable it back together. What an awesome rescue of a lovely tree! Nice job!

Cape Photo of the Day - Photo #15

The other flowering tree that has caught my eye in the last couple of days is the saucer magnolia. These bloomed right on the heels of the redbuds. This one was still a day or two away from its peak, but full of large pink flowers. From Wikipedia, "Magnolia × soulangeana was initially bred by French plantsman Étienne Soulange-Bodin (1774–1846), a retired cavalry officer in Napoleon's army, at his château de Fromont near Paris. He crossed Magnolia denudata with M. liliiflora in 1820, and was impressed with the resulting progeny's first precocious flowering in 1826." 

I am also impressed with its precocious flowering. Next up, the cherry trees! My young weeping cherry is starting to show some pink. Forsythia is also in full color now. I'll try and get a picture of my favorite forsythia in the Cape to share with you.

I tried to find an angle without the power lines but no doing. Then I considered airbrushing them out, but I guess it wouldn't be the Cape without power lines...

Cape Photo of the Day - Photo #12

The redbuds are blooming! They are the first of the spectacular flowering trees to achieve their full glory in our area. I also saw a few star magnolias in bloom, but they can't quite compare to the showy redbud. My in-laws had one in their front yard that always made a lovely backdrop for Easter day pictures. Our friends on Southview had perhaps the prettiest one in the Cape until a storm took it down a year or two ago - ouch. Forsythia should be next up, bursting into yellow flames in the next few days. I saw some already popping over the weekend along with some flowering quince, I believe (looks kind of like forsythia but with fruit punch colored flowers?). It's going to start getting colorful around here!

Cape Photo of the Day - Photo #10

Longboards Hanging on Cedars...

Henry and his longboard buddies were on the same wavelength as me yesterday. Earlier in the day, I went over to the Main Beach to take some pictures and got locked up on the grove of cedars just inside the entrance to the right. I found myself wondering if there is some history to that grouping of trees or if they are just naturally occurring.

I believe they are Eastern Red Cedars which are native to most of the Eastern US. I thought from my initial internet search that they might be Atlantic White Cedars, but those are quite rare this far inland - hugging a tight band along the East Coast. There are only a few isolated stands along the Magothy and Severn comprising only three hundred trees or so total. I'll have to do a little more research (please chime in if you know something of trees or the history of these), but my best guess for our Cape grove is Eastern Red Cedar, which is actually not a cedar at all, but a variety of juniper. (I really wanted them to be an undiscovered Atlantic White Cedar grove).

At any rate, I took a few pictures of the cedars as possible Photo of the Day candidates. Then this morning, Henry showed me this picture he took with his phone camera when he was out longboarding with his buddies yesterday. They had stopped for a break at the Main Beach and hung their boards on the tree that has the really crazy trunk.

I asked Henry what inspired them to do this. He replied, "One of the guys hung up his board. I thought it looked cool, so I hung up my board. Then the other guys thought it looked cool, so they hung up theirs. And then it looked so cool that we all took pictures." I love the flash of creative impulse that overtook this crew of 12 and 13-year old longboarders. I also love the picture.

Here are a couple of the ones I took. The longboards and helmets of Henry's elevate the subject to a whole different level, not to mention adding color and interest. So far, my kids have had a better eye than their mother for Cape snapshots. I did get one of the cedar grove that I like very much which I will post as tomorrow's Cape Photo of the Day. I think it's an ideal Cape Sunday morning shot.

Crazy trunk tree/longboard rack

Grove viewed from the NW.

Grove from the east.

Cape Photo of the Day - Photo #6

This time, I turned my daughter loose with the camera as we were driving into the Cape on Cape St. Claire Road yesterday. She too captured some lovely shots in the late afternoon light. I'm starting to understand why photographers love the morning and afternoon. To be honest, Kathryn was just randomly taking shots through the windshield, but when she went back to review the images, she showed me this one and said, "I really like this tree." I really like it too. I'm dreading the day this lovely open field on the way into the Cape gets developed, but hopefully this beautiful tree will be spared when the inevitable happens.