Almond Blossom and Cockatoos

The pretty almond blossoms gladden one's heart, lately, despite the icy weather. The Sulphur Crested Cockatoos--pure white, too, look a picture when they all land in the branches. Why do cockatoos come and snip flowers off, with their beaks? Never mind, the cut blossoms look nice as floral decorations indoors! Of course, the cockatoos and galahs will be back to cut open the green almond nuts in a few months' time. (They will also cut open pecan nuts. Such powerful, strong beaks. They can even tear green Aleppo pine cones apart--to shreds. A flock of cockatoos can sit in my pistachio trees, and chomp the nuts away. They don't get broken fingernails, either, as human beings do!)

A couple of decades back, I saw some ancient almond trees still surviving at the old Junction Reefs gold mining site, in an old, long-abandoned orchard. (There was an English Mulberry tree there, too, a Morus nigra, surviving neglected. It had a few fruits on it, but would've benefited from a little extra water.)

My almonds were grown from a bag of Christmas nuts. I started them off, in disposable plastic drinking cups. I gently cracked the shells, first, to assist in germination. They are very drought-resistant, once established, but can tend, as young seedlings, to go blue and sickly-looking in the extreme heat. I lost a few to this strange blue-leafed condition. The ones that survived that blue-leafedness all went on to become robust adult trees.

Almond blossom looks beautiful on moonlit nights. Honeyeaters find some nectar in almond blossom, which is interesting, because they don't appear to use plum or apricot or peach blossoms--other types of Prunus--as a nectar source. I've noticed that ornamental almond trees are very tough, and often seen around old abandoned farm homestead sites. They have a slight purple-bluish tint to the blossoms, when seen from a distance; whereas the ones for eating are more pink. Clouds of blossoms are necessary for that cottage garden effect.