Breathe promise of merry sunshine

You will all be aware that this is a line from the Mikado, following closely the phrase "The flowers that bloom in the Spring" and a number of "Tra la la"s.  This post is about flowers and sunshine (and also insects towards the end).

We have an almond tree, but thus far its only function has been to generate lots of lovely flowers each Spring.  Were they to set fruit I suspect the major outcome would be serious weight gain in the local cockatoo population.

A close up on the ornamental plum.  This never produces fruit either, but does a great job with the flowers.

This peach tree is rather young, but if all the blossom sets there will be a bit of weight gain in the local human population.

 The camellias are beginning to hit their straps.

It is worth clicking on this image to enlarge it.  I had never before realised how attractive the flowers of broad beans are!

We now shuffle into insects and flowers.  The first three images are of European bees doing the business on prunus and peach blossom.

The honey bees were the only insects I noticed on the exotic blossom.  However on checking up on the Acacia rubida I found these two interesting insects.  The lower one is clearly a member of the Diptera and I haven't yet given battle with the upper specimen:; clearly it is time to refresh my mind on entomology.  However this may add an iota of weight to the argument that native plants fit better with other parts of the local environment than do the exotics.

I have added a flashy daffodil and a couple of outbursts of Acacia blossom to earlier posts.