The Orchard

The word "orchard" has always conjured up a  romantic image for me. It reminds me of rambling country gardens in England and makes me think of gorgeous fresh fruit collected in baskets in abundance.
We always fancied the idea of having such a space specifically for trees that would provide us with just that......an abundance of fresh fruit.  So we settled on the large paddock behind the rose garden and started to plant one of everything!!  
And all with mixed success, as you might expect. 
There was the delicious apple tree.....

But not looking so healthy now.

The purplest plums you've ever seen.....

But definitely no purple there now...

The lemon tree....

The lemons are not lemon any more.......

The nectarine tree...

And the olive tree....

...are not looking happy...
But the apricot tree....

and the fig tree are very happy with themselves at this stage and have decided that perhaps they might be okay afterall.

These were taken in October 2011. Most of the trees you see in the background are no longer there....all burnt or cut right back.The little stable belongs to our neighbour and was also burnt.

 And I almost forgot this little birdhouse number 2 that we looked at every day through the kitchen window before we replaced it with Bill's Taj Mahal. We had planned to put it back up when the hollyhocks started flowering but it succumbed to the ravages of the fire.

Such a pretty little thing though....I'm a little bit sad about that.