Until July 2017, documenting the seasons of coastal Dorset. I'm a complete amateur so don't trust I'm always right. If ever you see I'm wrong - whether with identifications or in anything else - do say! Meanwhile . . . I've now moved to Halifax in West Yorkshire. Click on the link below to collect the new URL. Don't forget to follow there!

Thursday 3 September 2015

'MY' NEW SYCAMORE

The tree I've tried to follow this year has turned out to be too far away. Not only that - I never really liked it.

Not 'liking' a tree should be irrelevant. If it had been easier to get to I might have asked myself why I found it boring. I'm certain that would have been an illuminating exercise. After all, my choice of tree last year was absurd: it was a pine and the branches were too high to see properly let alone the needles. So I concentrated on its trunk - the point at which it went into the earth, the root flare round it,  its bark. And I loved it - having that small focus.

Sycamore wings beginning to turn brown.But this year . . . . I've abandoned the boring, far-away tree and have chosen one nearer; one I like.

It's another daft choice. Instead of being able only to see the trunk - I can only see the top. Its roots are down in a dip. I've visited this sycamore before and keep going back. To go back and back to see just a bit of a tree is a testament to its character and beauty. So I'll be following its top for a year beginning now.

  Join us and Follow a Tree
And having decided, and having noticed that some trees reach autumn earlier than others . . . and having photographed one of its beautiful and colourful and wonderfully designed seed-wings (on the 15th August)  . . . I'll keep my fingers crossed that I can get back to it again in time for October's Tree Following posts.

5 comments:

Donna said...

I think our trees can disappoint....my new tree this year is not doing much like it did last year, but I am already looking for better choices next year. I fear mine will continue to do very little until next spring...oh well. Glad you have found a replacement though that you like.

Angie said...

Good to read you've found a replacement Lucy. I will bear in some of your comments and choose next year's tree carefully. The one I had earmarked is way too far to be practical.

Rowan said...

I don't follow a tree though I do enjoy reading about the ones other people follow. Really I should do it especially as I have a large and beautiful oak in my garden, a climbable oak too - for my grandchildren anyway:) Their parents climbed it when they were young as well. Not sure I would get very far up it though!

Caroline Gill said...

I absolutely love your header of those instars ... stunning!

The Field of Gold said...

Here in new Zealand the sycamore is a pest and quite invasive. But I do like them because of their enterprise and tenacity.