Back in the day, when I lived in Mount Vernon, I used to joke with the neighbors that I loved seeing flowering trees in other people’s yards. They would laugh and nod knowingly. In the mid-Atlantic, flowering trees are emblematic of spring – they’re absolutely everywhere. From our iconic cherry trees clustered around the Tidal Basin in D.C. to the proliferation of redbuds (my favorite) to towering magnolias, flowering trees are pretty much ubiquitous around here at this time of year.

Well – it appears I now have a flowering tree in my yard, after successfully avoiding them for so many years. (If you know, you know – they look absolutely fantastic, but they drop petals like nobody’s business and are murder to clean up; magnolias are the worst offenders, by far.) Meet Little Tree.

Little Tree is a small tree down by our mailbox; it’s been weirdly landscaped so that it’s sort of umbrella-shaped; I can’t explain that choice. When we moved into this house back in June of last year, Little Tree was entirely green, so this is the first I’ve realized that it actually blossoms. At least until this point, Little Tree’s primary attraction was to the kids. They’re obsessed. If you couldn’t tell, they named Little Tree (and several of the other trees in our yard; I can’t keep track of them all, but they’re carrying on the grand L. M. Montgomery tradition around here) and they have been showering love on the poor thing ever since we moved in. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve had to tell them not to water Little Tree; they’re constantly on the march into the front yard armed with watering cans and the hose, and it’s a miracle Little Tree hasn’t drowned. They also love to drag the chairs from our patio table around the house and set them up in some kind of weird ritual circle around Little Tree.

Poor Little Tree.

Little Tree’s surprise blossoming sent me scurrying to the internet to see if I could identify what it is. After thorough research, I’ve concluded that I think Little Tree is a serviceberry. The star-shaped white blossoms look like serviceberry blossoms to me, although I don’t remember actually seeing any berries in my summer inspections to make sure that Little Tree wasn’t being literally killed with kindness. But then again, I wasn’t looking for that. In any event, Little Tree doesn’t seem to be dropping petals, and at least it’s not a stanky, meaty magnolia. It has been an unexpectedly pleasant surprise to look out the window and spot the blossoms, especially on the mascot of the yard.

Don’t you love surprise blooming the first spring in a new house?