Spring Discovery in our Orchard

Hello everyone, here is a photo blog that has been sitting in my drafts for theee at least 2 months. I took these photos at the beginning of this year's spring, in our orchard in front of the old house. As far as I can remember, my sister and I took our dog Maza for a walk that day and stayed by the cottage for a while, enjoying Turkish coffee and the sunshine that was only just beginning to timidly appear here and there after a colder winter.

What exactly I photographed here, I have no idea -> let's find out. Google Search by Image says it's a Japanese quince. Hmm, interesting, I never would have guessed. I assumed it was something purely ornamental and bush-like because I don't remember us having a fruit tree in the orchard that blooms like this and even has thorns before it bears fruit. Now, while I'm Googling, I'm learning that Japanese quince does produce fruit, of course, but for some reason that doesn't seem to happen here in Serbia. Whether that's the case in every orchard where it grows, I don't know, but I assume it is and that the main culprits are its early blooming and the late frosts.

Now that I think about it, there are so many things I've photographed over the years - whether it's a leafy plant, a flower or an insect - and they're all stored on one of my five Google Photos accounts, while I have absolutely no idea what most of them actually are.

Writing these blog posts really comes in handy. It automatically pushes me to research what's in the picture, and in the process I end up learning something new and interesting. Do you do that too? Isn't it fascinating? It's like a little discovery show where you're the host, the guest, the one asking the questions, and the one answering them, all at the same time. :D

One more charming thing about these Japanese quince blossoms: the contrast between the bright yellow stamens and the red petals is so striking. It's put together so perfectly that it immediately makes me want to pair those two colors and wear it out on the town.

And then there are the thorns that catch you off guard out of nowhere. The perfect outfit inspiration for a woman dealing with PMS. xD

Ladies of Hive, do you agree? (:

To balance out the thorns, I picked a few tiny white daisies that had just started blooming and tucked them among these red blossoms to make everything look a little more feminine and delicate.

I sometimes like to create little "hybrid" plants like that by combining two or three different ones and I wonder if anyone else does it too... moving a flower from one tree onto the branch of another, pairing pears with apples, sour cherries with sweet cherries or mixing apricots and peaches.

Okay, I know that's not how grafting and crossbreeding plants actually work, but hey, I'm not a botanist or an orchardist, just a crazy amateur photographer. xD