Pear Trees along Plank Road, North Garden, VA

My wife recently reminded me that she had a photo album full of photographs  she took in and around our home in North Garden.  I selected the reference photo of this look at Plank Road (S.R. 712) in the spring as it ran alongside our neighborhood.  In order to give our small (8 houses) neighborhood some additional eye-appeal, the builder planted Bradford Pear saplings along both sides of our street and all along the western edge of the property as it bordered Plank Road.  The pear trees, being all about the same size and age, produced virtually uniform blooms the first few springs, as shown in the painting.  Unfortunately, wind and weather began to take their toll on the trees.  When we moved away from North Garden after 19 years, several of the pear trees had suffered significant damage to their branches and some had to be removed because of the severity of the damages.  Since no one wanted to replace the trees in their yard, the uniformity of the blooming trees became a thing of thing of the past, but preserved in memory and in pictures, like this one.  TO