Hopeful

I spent quite a bit of today making a large batch of chilli con carne in the slow cooker for freezing, and I expected to be posting a quick still life I threw together of some of the fruits and vegetables that go into it. But a little squelch around the garden at lunchtime got me this female hazel flower, still sporting a few of yesterday's raindrops, and I like it better because it speaks of spring being just around the corner. 

I spent a while trying to get some male catkins on a nearby twig into the same shot, but the whole thing ended up looking messy, so in the end I've gone for the more minimalist look. In any case, an image containing both would give a false impression: though male and female flowers are found on the same tree, the hazel requires that a female flower on one tree is fertilised by pollen from a different specimen. This happens very readily, because as the yellow male catkins mature, they lengthen and open up, releasing their pollen to be distributed by the wind. We have numerous hazel trees in our garden, all busily fertilising each other through the early spring, and come the autumn we have the hazelnuts to prove it. Not that I've ever managed to harvest any: the squirrels always get to them well before me, leaving a carpet of broken shells underneath each tree as evidence of their larceny.

The hazel is a superb garden tree, and I wouldn't want to be without mine - though I sometimes wish they were a little less skilled at self-seeding. There's more about them here.