suns along the Mohawk

.  . from April 27 to May 3rd .  .

– It’s only been a week, but our 2011 Stockade cherry blossoms are already almost gone. –

   This season’s blossoms lived up to their symbolic message about beauty and impermanence.  They may, however, soon be memorialized on the masthead of the Stockade Association website — as part of a series of photographs in rotation.  Until then, here are screen-shot samples of images of our 2011 blossoms along Washington Avenue, sized in the challenging 8.5 to 1 aspect ratio of the Association masthead. You can click on either sampler for a larger version.

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Naturally, the suns along the Mohawk archives will always contain the photographs posted here over the past week of our blooming Stockade neighborhood.  Start here.

  Yesterday afternoon (Saturday, April 30), I noticed for the very first time that the tall thin tree behind Lawrence the Indian had lovely, white flowering blossoms in the Spring.  I asked a few of the most peripatetic of my Stockade neighbors, and none could recall seeing the white blossoms before.  Naturally, the sight needed to be captured digitally.

– click on the photo above for a larger version –

In the Slideshow below, you’ll see that the amount and angle of sunlight can make a significant difference, in photos taken at 6 PM on Saturday and at 7 AM and 3 PM today, Sunday, May 1, 2011.   The always-informative Sylvie Briber suggested the tree looked like a Bradford Pear tree, and my original research seemed to confirm that fact. [But, see below — it is apparently a Redspire pear tree.]

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If your powers of observation are better than mine, and you can give us information about Lawrence’s pear tree, please leave a comment or send me an email.

follow-up (June 10, 2011): It’s a Redspire pear tree. In a Comment submitted today (see below), Stan Hickok wrote that he is a ReTree Schenectady volunteer and, working closely with Susanna Sherwood and the Garden Club, initiated a ReTree program to replace Stockade trees.   Stan informs us that the tree featured in this posting was planted in 2001 and is in fact not a Bradford pear, but a Redspire pear tree.  Like the Bradford, it is in the callery family of pear trees.  See my reply to Stan for more information about the Redspire, which some observers say has many of the same problems as the Bradford.  For example, see “Callery Pears Can Cause Problems” (University of Illinois Extension, Feb. 23, 2005).

p.s.  Despite its beautiful Spring blossoms and spectacular Fall colors, I was surprised to discover that the Bradford Pear tree  (which does not bear fruit) has many detractors. as one critic at the Alabama Coop Extension explains:

For despite all the beauty they lend to thousands of landscapes throughout the region, the trees are plagued with one fatal flaw: due to their combination of vigorous growth, weak wood and poor branch structure, they often begin falling apart after only 20 years.

Another expert estimates that the trees only have an average lifespan of 15 years, and noted that they are especially susceptible to ice and snow damage.  For a detailed article, read, “Bradford Pear Tree (To plant or not to plant),” by Deb Magnes at the Dave’s Garden website.

  Magnolia blossoms make a fine complement to blooming forsythia (or vice versa).  Below, after a slideshow of photos taken today in the Stockade, you will find a gallery that includes each photo; click on each photo in the Gallery for a larger version, and scroll over it for a description.

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The Gallery below includes each of the slideshow photos (click on each photo for a larger version).

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 A second warm day in a row, coupled with a few minutes now and then of sunshine, brought blossoms to every corner of the Stockade.   This slide show represents several excursions around the neighborhood throughout the day and early evening, with an emphasis on cherry blossoms. [for more Stockade blossoms, see Tuesday’s posting “cherry blossom Society” and “forsythia Thursday“, along with “Lawrence and the pear tree” and “cherry blossom farewell”]

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   Sylvie Briber has graciously chosen to put eleven photos that have appeared here at Suns Along the Mohawk on the back cover of the May 2011 Stockade Spy, the newsletter of the Stockade Association.  After the slideshow is a Gallery with each photo.

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The Gallery below contains each of the photos selected for the May Spy.  Click on an image for a larger version and scroll over it for a description. [You can use this short link to refer to this weblog post: http://tinyurl.com/MaySpyPhotos%5D

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Sunday morning April 3, 2011, my Stockade neighbors discovered a rash of graffiti cutting a path down N. College St. and then up Green St. to N. Ferry, and then west on Union St. to S. Church St.   By my count, fourteen properties had been tagged.  Below is a slideshow with more than two dozen photographs of the graffiti.

update (20Feb2013): click for more Union St. tagging .

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Each Slideshow photo appears in the photo gallery below.

– share this post with the short URL: http://tinyurl.com/StockadeTag

Click on each Gallery photo below for a larger version and scroll over it for a description.

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