Cherry orchards Flathead bloom
— — the week the lake turned white with cherry blossom.
Not only on a wall.
“For about ten days in mid-May the orchards along the east shore of Flathead Lake go white. The Mission Mountains rise straight up from the water on the far side. Bees come down from the foothills. Around seventy growers work the lake-warmed slope between Polson and Yellow Bay, producing Montana's Flathead cherries. Bloom is short. The fruit comes in July.
Cherry orchards Flathead bloom, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Flathead Lake is the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi by surface area, covering about 191 square miles in northwest Montana. The east shore, between Polson and Bigfork, is the heart of Montana's commercial cherry country: roughly seventy growers work a narrow band of orchard between U.S. Highway 35 and the lake. The lake moderates the local climate enough to make the crop possible at 2,900 feet of elevation. The dominant variety is the Lambert, with Lapins, Rainier, and Sweetheart also grown.
Bloom usually arrives in the second or third week of May and lasts about ten days. The exact week swings with the spring; some years it comes early in May, some years it holds off until nearly Memorial Day. Harvest follows about eight weeks later, the third week of July through the first week of August. Roadside stands open along Highway 35 in July; the Flathead Cherry Festival in Polson runs the third weekend of the month and has been held annually since the 1990s.
The drive runs roughly 35 miles along Highway 35 from Polson at the south end of Flathead Lake to Bigfork at the north end. Yellow Bay State Park, about halfway up, has lake access and picnic ground. Glacier National Park's west entrance lies an hour north at West Glacier. The Mission Mountains rise straight out of the lake on the east, capped with snow into June. Lodging is concentrated in Bigfork and Polson; small inns and cabin rentals dot the lakeshore between.