WHO STOLE MY LEAF?

Narrow path between elder trees.
To see what this was like in January click for
the first in this series of elder posts.

There are several of us bloggers who feel a bit disrupted when the council cuts verges along paths and roads. A few years ago, there was a specially deep and distressing hack-back, just when it was almost the moment to go blackberrying. It hasn't been too troubling since then. Vipers bugloss and chicory plants tend to be affected so the grassy edges of a route I often follow are less dramatic, less blue than they used to be - but the trees are kept trim without being splintered and torn; people can walk or cycle without being grabbed by brambles. It has to be done.

Until recently, the undergrowth (mainly consisting of alexanders and nettles) has been growing tall between me and my elder tree. (The 'my' meaning the one I've been following since leaves first showed their buds.) At times, it's been awkward. I've had to zoom in over the top to photograph 'my' particular leaf. And there have been irritations too - of all the leaves on the tree, 'mine' decided to be the smallest, the least grown, the runt for all that it started well.

The leaf I've been following used to be in the crook of this lichen covered bough which
is covered in a layer of Common Orange Lichen
(Xanthoria parietina)

And now? Between going on holiday and returning, the council has been by and shaved things back. Elderberries which were ripening when I went have been cut off or shaken from their stems. And, strangely, despite having grown in the protective crook of a bough, the leaf I was following has gone, along with its brothers and sisters.

Bits of wood are broken.

Ivy leaf pierced by twig.

Leaves pierced.

But . . . and there are lots of good 'buts' . . . nearby, a bit of colour - 

Gatekeeper (Pyronia tithonus) butterfly on blade of grass.

a Gatekeeper Butterfly in the grass.

And blackberries too. Some have had their stems cut so the fruits have withered and dried but there are still masses ripening - not very ripe yet but there!

Attention will need to shift to them. They are looped over 'my' tree, even if 'my' tree is a little depleted!

* * *

This post is part of my 'Tree Following'

If you'd like to email me the link to your latest tree following post

looseandleafy@googlemail.com

(or, if you prefer, leave a link in the comments box)

I'll add it in here and make sure your name

is included in the list of 'Tree Followers' at the top of the blog.

What is Tree Following and Who Does It?

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Seeing for the First Time - Wych Elm at Patio Patch
Plane Tree - Summer 2012 at Gardening Ways

P.S. You may like this sequence of 20 pictures of  some of the world's most beautiful trees.

WHEN THE MIST CLEARED

First - slug alert. If you don't want to see a slug, don't go down the page.

. . . Let's pause a moment . . . while the squeamish leave . . .

Hello brave remaining souls! Here we go!

This morning, when I woke, there was a mist and the world turned out to be a mass of webs; all of them dripping with silver and and festooned with drops. Some plants were layered with gossamer so thick it was not entirely pleasant. Others were simple and pretty; not an advert for the omni-presence of spiders, but keeping hold of the mist until the sun could steal it.

Another pause while the mist lifts enough to make sense of going out with a camera . . .

Mostly, this is a hedgerow blog but, sometimes, I go for a walk in the streets to see what's there. Autumn. That's what's there. In the sense that autumn is when fruit ripens, autumn runs parallel with much of the summer. Seeds are forming and ripening all the time. This morning, they were dotted with drops left by the mist.

Remember the park where we found the scarlet pimpernel and clover and barley grass? As you see, the main area has been mown but there are sprigs of wall barley ripening round the edges

and . . .

. . . also along the edges, under protection of railings - little plants thrive.

Along the pavements, this being early morning, an army of ground-hugging street cleaners are at work eating sick and poo - and each other.

Some creatures prefer fresh vegetation. Snails are rarely welcome in gardens but, on the street side of a privet hedge they will do little or no harm. A creature has to eat!

Closer

Need cereal for breakfast . . . There are planters outside one of the shops. (One of the shops which is next to an empty shop.) The plants here haven't been planted in a formal way. Their seeds arrived on the wind.

The white lichen in the middle is probably Diploicia canescens

And, beside the traffic, trees the council planted grow lichen. There's something very restful about this. You hardly see it arrive. You hardly see it grow.

It's a mixed bag, a mixed world, a world chugging along mostly unnoticed on a Sunday morning.

But it's there.

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ABOUT TREES

I've been away on holiday, busy, distracted, lazy, inefficient . . . and have lost track of where we are with tree following. If you have recent posts ('recent' defined rather loosely - say, sometime in the last six weeks!) let me know and I'll put links to them here next week.

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BEWITCHED BY BLUE

Chicory Flowers

I could do nothing but post about chicory.

Here it grows up to about four foot high.

Hoverfly on Chicory Flower

I am not the only one who loves it.

Bee on Chicory Flower

Though my admiration does not extend to bathing in its pollen.

Willow Herb

There's a lot of blue and pink and purple around at the moment. The sky switches between blue and grey. If you look into sun-glare, it looks quite dramatic.

Except for leaves dropping from the tree in the autumn,
new ones arriving in sprin
and growing again through the summer,
this view stays much the same through the year.

This is looking up to where these plants grow.

I'm pretty much alone . . . but not quite . . . look behind me and a solitary herring gull swims away.

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IT CAUGHT MY EYE AT THE BEGINNING OF AUGUST

Crocosmia (Montbretia) on a cliff beside Portland Harbour (Dorset)

I've just returned from a holiday in 36 degrees centigrade. (29 degrees in the shade.) When the plane touched down on our return to Dorset, it was greeted with a shower so brief we might have numbered the drops if we had bothered to stop to count. Instead, we breathed deep. Grass! We could smell grass instead of dust!

There's nothing wrong with dust - it's just that green grass is . . . is . . . a bit more refreshing than dust. There's nothing wrong with hibiscus. Indeed, it smells delicious. But where the air was hot and the ground dry, few plants flowered untended. The Gardens of Babylon are remembered after centuries. Gardens are special where there are no hedgerows.

Ragwort beside Portland Harbour (Dorset). See the bee?

On the bus from the airport into Bournemouth roadsides were bright with ragwort - all of it happily looking after itself. Beside the train track, buddleia bloomed on the hills. How would Babylon have compared?

Buddleia and ragwort clash. They are not one of nature's best combinations. But there they were. If I came from a place of heat and dust, I expect I'd sniff the air as I arrived and delight in it just as much for home is home is home.

However could they have missed this when they televised the Olympic sailing?

But I was not born in Dorset so the air, the plants, the light, the sea - they bowl me over as an incredible luxury still, even after twenty five years.

Being without my camera was a condition of my going - one I willingly accepted for there are ways of seeing and of being. So there are are no holiday photos - only coming home ones. And what a home to come home to!

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