Skip to main content

Featured

Wells Cathedral, Swan Hotel, Wells Street Market & Vicar's Close

After a day of touring Stourhead and The Newt , it was back to our hotel in Wells - The Swan. This is an older hotel with a bewilderingly complex floor plan. Narrow hallways, multi-level staircases, and endless turns, it was like something out of the Winchester widow's house. I was unable to locate my room after checking in and had to seek assistance.  The previous night, I had dinner in the hotel restaurant, and had fish and chips with traditional mushy peas. It was delicious.  Before leaving for Stourhead that morning, I walked down the street filled with quaint shops. A street market was in the process of setting up - Proceeding down the next few blocks leads you to Wells Cathedral and the surrounding area - Down a side street to Vicar's Close, Europe's oldest street with original buildings intact. Dating back to the mid-fourteenth century, the 27 residences were built for Bishop Ralph of Shrewsbury. The houses are mostly occupied by students. I thought it was a bit of ...
Post a Comment
Read more
Labels

Strawberry Tree


Since moving to Washington, I have discovered a great number of new trees. One of my favorites is the Strawberry Tree (Arbutus unedo). It is a four-season tree with semi-glossy evergreen leaves and lovely mahogany bark. In autumn, clusters of white flowers appear, bearing a resemblance to Lily-of-the-Valley flowers. And then there are the little fruits, which resemble strawberries that appear at the same time as the flowers. I am not sure why, but I have only seen a few fruits on ours. I don't know if birds are getting them before I see them or what happens. The fruits are said to be edible but not very tasty (to humans).

This year, our tree is loaded with flowers, the most I've ever seen. Bees absolutely love it and so do the hummingbirds. The flowers usually continue to appear straight through winter, and it can be blooming even during the coldest periods of winter.

Aside from the fact that I have not seen much of the colorful fruits, the major negative note is the fact that the limbs seem to break easily. We have had breakage during two big snowfalls, the worst happening last winter and resulting in a big chunk of the middle of the tree leaving an ugly hole. I pruned the damaged branches back and it is slowly filling back in.

This is a Mediterranean-climate loving tree and it does well in dry summers. It doesn't mind water either and ours get regular watering. 



Text and photos by Phillip Oliver, Dirt Therapy
Email Post
Labels:

Comments

  1. Kris PetersonOctober 30, 2024 at 7:24 PM

    Mine are loaded with blooms this year too but I assumed that was because I delayed my annual tree pruning exercise. Maybe not as you're having the same experience. I don't think even the birds like the fruit ;)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hoover BooNovember 6, 2024 at 7:12 PM

    Agree, it is a beautiful tree, the bark, the flowers, everything. Fruit just doesn't taste like anything at all, really. Bland. Once thought to be native to Ireland as well as the Mediterranean, now some think it was introduced to Ireland from the Iberian peninsula as long ago as the Neolithic--4000 years ago.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment