The long wait is almost over

Three years ago, one of my best friends and her hubby visited me at my new home for the first time. They helped me paint my fence, put in new flower beds and plant a tree in the front yard. The tree I had selected was a flowering Bradford Pear tree.  It was a skinny, toothpick of a tree, not much taller than 8 feet and anyone else would have probably taken one look at it and called it a Charlie Brown tree. But it had two important requirements - it actually fit in my small car and it was less than $30. As the tree was finally planted visions of white blossoms danced in my head. I couldn't wait to see it in full bloom the following spring.  These trees are everywhere here and gorgeous when covered with flowers. 

And so when the next year rolled around and spring had come and gone I was bummed to find not one blossom on my tree. It had gotten a little bigger and I figured it would need another year.  So another spring rolls around and still no blossoms. Now, I'm annoyed.  I had passed a twig in someone's yard that was smaller than my tree and yet it was covered in white flowers. Where the heck were my flowers?!  Did I buy a tree with an incorrect tag? Surely not since the leaves looked like those on a Bradford pear.  My tree had gotten even fatter and had grown at least six inches. And I had feed it tree fertilizer two years in a row... and still nothing.

Well, imagine my surprise when I wandered in the front yard late in late evening to spot what looked like flower buds.  I'm sure my neighbors who were barbequeing across the street thought I was nuts as I gleefully climbed into the flower bed with a camera and took several shots of the buds. Hey, they didn't have to wait three years for a darn blossom to show up!  We're suppose to have winds of up to 50 miles tomorrow so hopefully my little Charlie Brown will hang on to its buds and leaves. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll actually get to see the buds open up to beautiful white blossoms in the next two weeks.

Update: I climbed into the flower bed again today (3/14) and finally got a semi-decent picture of the blossoms. There was a bit of a breeze today which made it rather difficult to shoot anything in focus. I was also sweating bullets though trying to be careful where I stepped in the bed. There's gladiola bulbs scattered here and there, with no plan whatsoever. Hopefully nothing was squashed!