TREE FOLLOWING - I'VE FOUND MY TREE

Only after taking this picture of the tree did I realise how close
its silhouette is to the Tree Following emblem.

The morning was sunny. I set out to photograph my tree. I arrived. The sky had clouded over. The world was in black and white. Ok. We'll go with this. We'll have a proper silhouette.

I've chosen my tree with my heart rather than my head. I don't know what kind of tree it is. I can't reach its branches. I can't reach its needles. There's no interesting undergrowth around it. It's not in a photogenic location. I can't remember any bird sitting in it. It's falling to bits. It may have to be felled before the end of the year.

It may have to be felled . . . that clinches it. This may be the last chance we'll have to get to know it. There are many of the same in the area. I'd guess they were planted at roughly the same time. They are in parks and in gardens. This one is on a patch of grass in front of a block of flats.

Many near it have already been chopped down. Their branches die and have to be lopped. Eventually there will be none left. Indeed, I reported this tree myself a few years ago when a large branch broke away after a high wind. It didn't fall; it dangled. It could have landed on something. When tree surgeons arrived I was worried they might take out the whole tree. They didn't. (As you can see!)

It's a kind of pine (I think). When you look up into its remaining branches you can see its cones. They are about six inches long, heavy and very dense. A friend has tried to grow a new tree from the seeds of several - never with success.

The needles are long too (about four inches) and grow in bunches. The bark is chunky, irregular and layered. When dry it's grey. When wet its colour is richer - with tints of conkers. There are webs in its fractures - so there must be spiders. It weeps resin.

See the fallen needles leaning against the bark on the left of the picture?
The plant about to flower is Chickweed (Stellaria media)

Above ground, the trunk is supported by what I think of as toes. Alongside them and around the tree there are plants. I hadn't expected plants. I'd expected sparse grass. There were docks and daisies, plantain and chickweed.

Roots have broken the surface.






Although you may not be conscious of it, what you hear when you visit a tree will influence how you relate to it. Trees inspire emotions and emotions are inspired by sound as much as by sight. The only means I have to record sound for the blog is by taking a video. So that's what I've done. It's not exactly action packed but it gives the tree a context; there's a car, a crow, voices, gulls.

Here it is on YouTube - Click!

It's surprising how many plants grow around
the tree despite the spread of its branches.
Daisy (Bellis perennis)

All I need to know now is what kind of tree it is. For the moment, I'm calling it Freda. I don't know why it looks like a Freda. It just does. So, having decided on its name I set out (irrelevantly, I admit!) to find out what 'Freda' means. Maybe 'peaceful ruler' or 'elf-strength' say the baby-name sites. (I'm not always sure whether these meanings are real or made up and my knowledge of mediaeval saxon doesn't exist - does anyone know?) Pottering further through the internet and away from my tree, I found an Elfrida who was Queen consort to Edgar, King of the English; roughly 957 - 975. (It's complicated.) King Edgar? Never heard of him! I know I'm wandering from my tree but they were a 'right lot' in those days and while I've not read this book about her its synopsis on Good Reads gives the idea! Indeed Elfrida would have made a good founding member for the League of Wicked Stepmothers. She had one of her step-sons murdered at Corfe Castle so - Dorset! Strength! Peace! Freda it is! It's an old fashioned name. If we ignore less pleasant associations, perhaps it's due for a come-back.

Are you following a tree?

All photographs in this post were taken on March 5th 2014

I'm Following a Tree

This post is part of the Tree Following project for 2014. To find out more about it, go to the Tree Following Page. Tomorrow (7th March 2014) there will be a Linky box. If you have a post about the tree you are following you will be able to leave its URL there so other readers will be able to find it easily. If you haven't used a linky box before, don't worry. It's all very straightforward and obvious when you see it. If your post isn't ready yet - no matter. The box will stay 'open' for a week.

Easy to remember - open for 7 days from 7th of every month from now on.

Want to join in? Email me at looseandleafy@googlemail.com

P.S. This tree is very tall. I'm no good at guessing heights. Carole at La Fosse has used trigonomtery to measure the height of the chestnut tree she's following. That's beyond me. All I can say is that 'my' tree is very tall but not as tall as hers!

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LOOKING UP FOR A BIT

As I write - it's mid-morning and getting darker as the rain grows heavy.

Walks have to be snatched when it's neither uncomfortably windy nor wet. Such moments of ordinary sun and still air are treasurable - even to someone like me who likes wild and windy weather.

In such a moments, the sky can be surprisingly blue . . .

beyond the ever flowering gorse

and through the lattice of elder hedge.

The upper branches are bare but, lower down

leaf buds are not only forming above the ever pleasing lichen

but breaking open.

And Old Man's Beard

grows thinner scraggier and more beardy and old as the weeks pass.

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I WAS PROBABLY WRONG

Last autumn, the council cut back the blackberry bushes and with them went branches from trees; not big, fat, you-could-hang-a-swing-from-them-branches but they were, none the less, large enough to be split and squashed and splayed by the machine which mashed its way relentlessly along the hedgerow.

(The council is keen to emphasise it was a contractor, not the council itself which did this - but it was the council which contracted the contractor . . . so I find it hard to separate them.)

Here we are, a year on and this post is to show what happened to some of the broken branches. Last December, I was using a mobile phone camera which I could hold up high and still and take pictures one handed. When I dropped the phone down the loo, that was then end of that and I'm using a 'proper' camera now - which is heavier . . . and needs two hands. What with a different camera and nettles and brambles, it hasn't been possible to take the latest photos from the same angle. In one case (on the oak) I'm not sure I've even re-photographed the same branch! (But I think it is and it's on the same tree so I hope it'll do.)

Another difference is the season. The ones from last year were taken 3rd - 5th December 2008. This year, I thought it would be good to include leaves so I've taken them a bit early and the presence of leaves (and clouds!) makes them darker, less dramatic. I think it's worth it though. One comes from 29th October 2009. I'm still uncertain about that tree - birch . . . alder . . . ? It's the bark which stumps me. I've included a cropped photo of the catkins on that one. When I take another, better one, I'll swap it. The rest, I took yesterday (17th November 2009) - three weeks early but already too late for elderberry leaves. The thing about elderberry is that it looks much more substantial when in leaf than it does when the branches are bare. In the summer, it's a green blob and they are barely discernable. In winter, it's thin and skeletal and hardly shows that it ever grew anything green. Viewed from even a short distance away, it does a good impression of being dead. I'd have needed to be very observant and assiduous about timing to have stood myself by the elderberry when it had leaves and branches to be seen at the same time and at a moment when the sun was shining - in the right direction!

I like elderberry; and one of the good things about it where I live is that it provides a good perch for lichen and this lichen is very rain re-active. In December, the weather can be blue-sky-crisp-cold-and-dry. In November, it's more likely to be wet and windy. That's what it is at present and the light and the lichen show it. The November pictures are darker than the December ones and the lichen in them is green instead of yellow. It's even greener when wetter and takes hardly any time to change. My guess is that wind is drying it almost as fast as rain lands.

To the trees:-

TREE WITH RED BARK

December 5th 2008

The same tree - October 24th 2009

From this point on, the layout is weird. I have tried and tried to sort it but, unless I am to devote the rest of my life . . . well, I'm giving up. I have no idea why it is in large print and why the captions won't sit neatly where I want them . . . 'spec you'll manage!

OAK Oak - 3rd December 2008

Oak - 17th November 2009

Oak - 3rd December 2008

Oak - November 17th 2009

The reproductive (!) quality of pictures from here on isn't good. I was using the new editor. The pictures above - I've managed to replace using the old editor. Will probably sort this but ANOTHER DAY! aAAAAAAAAAAAGH!

ELDER

Splayed Elder with Shoot - 3rd December 2008

.

Splayed Elder - 17th November 2009

Elderberry Whirl - 2008

Elderberry Whirl - 17th November 2009

And was I wrong? Trees can be slow movers but, so far, they don't seem to have been too troubled by the damage done to them by council's (I mean the contractor's) cutting machines. I'll keep watching. But my preliminary conclusion is that I was wrong. I didn't make jam. It's possible that birds were disturbed. I'm not a bird person and I can't tell. If I was wrong to worry - I apologise. On the other hand . . . I'm glad I've watched.