WHAT RIGHT DO I HAVE TO SEE ANYTHING? (AND SOME ALEXANDERS)

My camera is irreparable so they've sent me a new one. And it's not just a new camera it's a different model. My old camera is not only bust but extinct.

The first camera I ever used (the first proper camera) was a Canon. I'd hit on the idea that I'd like to hold a photographic exhibition about life in a factory so I phoned an arts organisation and asked if I could borrow a camera. They were very enthusiastic and lent me a good one. They were very trusting. And I was very . . . very . .  ambitious would you say?

I couldn't afford to do a course in how to develop the film or print in black and white so I agreed with a friend that she'd take the course and show me what she'd learned. The plan worked. While a large group of students beavered away in the teaching lab. I caught up with their last week's lessons in the little lab. next door. Even better, the teacher found out what I was doing and while the large class worked through their latest exercise he'd come through to see how I was getting on. And he'd stop awhile to talk about photography until he reckoned they'd had enough time to complete their task.

Next I had to work out how to take good pictures of people while they were at work. Wandering around a factory floor would already be distracting and using a flash would compound the problem. So a friend's daughter (who happened to be a professional landscape photographer) showed me how to up-rate the film (now we're all digital there's no particular reason to explain what this means - except I could take crisp pictures in a low light even when people were moving) . . . she then got the film developed at a professional developers and helped me evening after evening after evening to print my pictures huge enough to display. Then I had my exhibition.

Talk about a grand beginning!

After that, I had to save to buy my own cameras and the challenge has been that I can't decide on a subject and style then buy a camera to match - I have to have to adapt what I photograph according to what the kind of camera I can afford to buy can do. (And where I live, of course.) Which is why I landed up taking pictures of leaves instead of factories. I suppose my addiction is to seeing and as long as I'm seeing something interesting it doesn't matter too much what it is. That isn't exactly, exactly true but it's near enough.

And being of modest means, I've always had to put a lot of work into researching before purchasing. Now I was being sent 'an unknown' so a stage was missing - and I didn't like it. Something emotional had gone adrift. An email gave a tracking code so I followed the progress of the parcel from Watford to Barking. (Barking?!) And from Barking to Southampton. (Southampton!?) And eventually, having had its own little holiday wandering around the south of England, it arrived. It should have been a moment of joy but I couldn't bring myself to open the box. It sat there and sat there until in the end I pulled back the tape and took out the camera and fiddled around with it a bit . . . then ranted crossly around the house because, I reckoned, it was rubbish. I didn't like it. It was almost unbearable. It was this or nothing - and I didn't like the 'this'.

As forbearing readers will know, my glasses broke around the same time as my camera.

Opticians appointment.

I waltzed in.

Any problems with my eyes?

No. Just that I needed new glasses.

But there was no significant change in the prescription.

Weird.

I have the beginning of cataracts.

"Oh?" I said airily, treating this as a matter of general interest rather than immediate concern, not yet registering the reason I can't see properly isn't because I need new glasses but that my vision is itself already a bit blurred. I asked how long it takes for cataracts to get really bad. Eight years? said the optician. Or twenty? Can't tell. But however long it takes there's nothing that can be done about it. Just one of those things everyone knows but no-one understands.

The next thing I did was to buy a really good cup of coffee and a specially delicious caramel shortbread with real chocolate on top. (Whoever invented cooking chocolate was a fool.)

And now I'm falling in love with my camera . . . and getting obsessed with focus. Knowing what a picture really looks like is a bit awkward with a laptop. The angle of the screen, the brightness, whether it's my laptop or yours . .  so many variables. So now I angle my head from side to side and wonder what the picture really looks like. I don't want to exaggerate . . . but I can't really tell . . . if I look at the screen sideways from the right . .  is that how you will see the veins in the leaves best too? Just about? Or from the left? And the patches missing? I'd been thinking I had mild-migraine vision. Who wouldn't have a migraine if their phone, their glasses and their camera all broke at once? But I suppose it isn't a migraine. My eyes are simply getting fed up with bright lights.

It's interesting how a little bit of information changes the way one sees the world - literally.

Once I'd digested the caramel shortbread . .  and resisted the temptation to go back for more the next day . .  I began thinking about what that 'eight years' or 'twenty years' will bring. If my sight will slowly but inevitably go fuzzy, what do I want most to see? What do I most want to do with my camera? Which is more important - the line of the horizon or a grain of pollen? It's too easy to say 'everything' or 'both' because I'm a bit of a specialist. I like to know where my focus lies. (Focus. Ha!) And I want to get the most out of my camera while there's a point in having one. So how I set it up . . . and how I use it . . . becomes a bit philosophical. I'm struggling a bit. I'm asking myself what right do I have to see? Not everyone can. Not everyone has a camera.

The thing about this new camera (now I've stopped running up and down saying it's rubbish - which it isn't) is that it's easier to set the focus in odd places . . . and although I haven't (yet?) managed to get it to take pictures of pollen or anything with specially impressive close-up detail, it's easier now to play with depth of field as well as centre of interest. So I pottered out this afternoon and messed around with random pictures of Alexanders. One can get used to everything in the end. I think. No. I don't think that. Not everything. But I'm getting used to my camera and already it's my friend.

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STREET PLANTS AND STREET PEOPLE

A sow thistle growing on a wall may flower and thrive.
A human with no-where to go will be less successful.

As you know - can't fail to have missed - I am impressed by street plants. They live in shop doorways and gutters and flourish there. People don't.

You may also have gathered from previous posts that I visit Oxford from time to time. What I haven't said in these posts is that while photographing street plants, I've been taken aback by how many people live on pavements there too. I mean, in almost every town people sleep rough - but in Oxford, to an outsider like me, the visible numbers are shocking - so many doorways are every night turned into cramped, temporary bedrooms.

The sycamore tree in a drain we have followed for the last few years
still lives but is getting a bit cramped.
Drains are not meant for trees - nor shop doorways for humans.
June 2016

I don't understand. Oxford is a place with one of the best universities in the world. It's a place stodgy with outstanding brains. You'd have thought they could have set aside some time to put their intellectual heads together and work out what can be done.

Meanwhile, council funding for charities working with and for homeless people in Oxford has been cut by £1.5 million this year.

I don't want to go on about Oxford over much. It's just happens to be where I get most shocked. It's the place where I think about homelessness more than I do anywhere else - even more than where I live. It's the place where I think, over and over "what are minds for if not for addressing these kinds of basic needs?" And it's where (I expect you were waiting for this . . . ) where I know someone who is taking part in an event to raise a little of the money charities need to help those who are homeless, or newly homeless, or newly with a roof over their heads. Having somewhere to stay - though important - is not the end of the matter. It means a life-style change and that doesn't necessarily come easy to everyone.

THE BIG OXFORD SLEEP-OUT

Weymouth, June 2016

It's always hard to think of an event that will draw people to raise money, to raise consciousness, to 'make something happen' without it being naff or offensive. Selling jam to raise money for famine victims it's . . . well, there's something uncomfortable about it. So it may be that the group of students and local citizens who will be 'sleeping-out' for one night may find it a bit awkward . . . Being in the open for one night is not the same as curling up under a cardboard box every night in November. However . . . however . . . however awkward it feels . . . sometimes if money is needed you have to go with the ideas you come up with; ideas that are within your reach to fulfil

By clicking the link you'll go to the Just Giving page of a first-time fundraiser. She won't be the only one coming at this from scratch but she happens to be the one I know . . . And while each participant has been asked to raise £100 by being cold for a few hours . . . it would be good if every one of them were to raise more, for it's not for themselves they are doing it.

Here's the link.

If any of you do feel moved to give - perhaps you will think of those street plants

And how people are rarely as resilient as they are.

Money raised will be shared between

Oxford Homeless Pathways

Connection Floating Support

Aspire, Oxford

Photos in this post were taken in Dorset, not in Oxford. But these kinds of plants live in both places.

Some other Loose and Leafy Street Plant posts.

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P.S. I suddenly realise it looks a bit odd, exhorting you to give when it seems (from the list) as if I haven't done so myself! But due to the nature of my card I had to use the 'anonymous' option.

THE OUT OF FOCUS BRIGADE

Snail on an apple tree twig.

Loose and Leafy is primarily for wild plants; street plants and plants of the hedgerows. (Insects too.) From time to time I visit an open-to-the-public kind of garden. Rarely do I show photos from an ordinary garden belonging to an ordinary house. I haven't for ages.

Blurry apple blossom

This afternoon, I was meant to be sitting outside, drinking tea, chatting, with music in the background. 

Music is difficult outside. You need it loud enough to appreciate but quiet enough not to bother neighbours. With a bit of fiddling around the sound was perfected . . . and it was all very pleasant.

This scented geranium leaf is not specially blurry but the light pointed it out.

But I can't sit long if there are things to see - even if I'm meant to be engaged in relaxed and friendly chatter. And this afternoon there was a special kind of atmosphere. A storm is brewing and it's taking a while to get to the break-out moment. Sometimes, before a storm, the atmosphere goes clear and everything, even at a distance - especially at a distance! - can be seen in more detail than usual.

Well, having built up your expectations . . . it wasn't that kind of light today. It was . . . not exactly hazy . . . but not quite as clear as it is most of the time either. And there were unaccountable little patches of brightness; a leaf here and another there which seemed to have been out to buy batteries and had turned on torches of their own.

Out-of-focus hosta leaf

So up I got, left the tea on the table . . . and pottered off to look at leaves . . . and things.

But, as I say, the light was odd.

I can't remember having posted out-of-focus-photos before. But this is what I'm doing here. I could pretend I was using some special technique or camera setting; but I wasn't. They just didn't come out right.

At the same time . . . by chance . . . they show what it was like this afternoon. Initially I chucked them aside. But I kept coming back to them. And I like them. There are different kinds of beauty.

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(All photos in this post taken on the afternoon of May 17th 2016.)

TREE FOLLOWING OCTOBER - SYCAMORE BY THE SEA

I'll begin by zapping you with colour.

This is 'my' sycamore - the one I'm following; taken in the evening.

I was going to say "It's not really that colour" when I realised I don't really know what colour it is. If I were nocturnal, daytime colours would be an aberration. And in the rain it's something else.

Here it is on the morning of the same day.

Yet this isn't exactly right - for the sun was ahead on the right and not only was it lighting the tree in a morning-way, my camera and I were seeing it differently from each other..

Approached from another side, it was gently green and yellow and brown. From another a silhouette. From another it was almost wiped away in the white glare.

I can't get right close to its trunk because it's surrounded by brambles. Of the ones nearby (and there are many) these blackberries are the last to ripen. The sycamore's shade and a curve in the path combine to keep the sun away. They are sweet though.

(I know this because in a spirit of scientific enquiry I ate all the ripe ones I could reach.)

Quite a few leaves are falling onto the path before they are brown - maybe because the tree is exposed to strong, easterly winds which drive straight at it from the length of the English Channel.

Its seeds are blowing aside too. This one was a few feet beyond the over-hanging branches. One of the helicopter-blades has broken in the fall.

Peering closer one can see that while autumn hits the tree, little plants are growing through the dry and un-nutritious soil. They will be trodden down before they get very tall but for such plants the year is a perpetual spring, regardless of the official season.

We can see that one of 'our' pair of seeds on 'our' tree is broken too. I have photo after blurred photo of this same seed because the tree wouldn't stop waggling around in the wind. But I've followed the progress of this particular seed over the last couple of months so I kept going back. (One day, I'll go and they'll be gone.) 

I can't say this tree is lovely at present. As the leaves change colour (and some fall)  tightly packed clusters of seeds are revealed either against the sky or against the new yellows and paler greens. Individually they are fine - it's almost impossible to walk by without picking them up from the path and throwing them in the air to watch them spin round as they fall. But bunched up they can be ugly and unpleasant. These clusters here are looser and smaller than most - prettier.

(The reason I am able to identify one particular seed again and again is that the seeds on one low-hanging branch have developed farther apart from each other than those on the main part of the tree and one hangs at an odd angle.)

Slightly beyond the tree's shadow other plants are turning into skeletons. These dried stems will stand like this all winter.

But chicory is still flowering and hoverflies are fighting over individual flowers; dive bombing each other even if there are vacant ones on the same plant.

Why? Perhaps some flowers are already drunk-empty of  nectar and pollen? Or maybe hoverflies are jealous of each other and can't stand to see somone else on something good. Or maybe they don't like hoverflies who look different from themselves? (See below.) Anyone know?

Are you
Following a Tree?

Do join us! There's more information on the Loose and Leafy Tree Following Page.

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WHY DO LEAVES CHANGE COLOUR IN AUTUMN?

Wonderful, easy to grasp first time and brilliantly short explanation from Peter Gibbs of the BBC.

HOVER FLY SITES

Royal Entomological Society
"Over 250 species have been recorded in the UK, and more than 85 species have been found in a single garden."

British Hoverflies - Useful for ID because there are masses of pictures!

Nature Guide UK - I've only just found this site and have added it to the Loose and Leafy list of helpful and interesting ID sites. Even bigger pictures! It has other insects too. Well worth a browse.

Nature Spot

also on Nature Spot

Some Loose and Leafy blog posts where hoverflies make guest appearances.

The Next Box for Tree Following Links

will open at 7am (UK time) on 7th October 2015

and close at 7pm on the 14th.

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RED LEAF ON THE BADGER PATH

There will be a Stuck Foot Post on Saturday. It will open at 7am and stay open till 7pm on 25th March. Do join me in 'Sticking Your Foot' in one place and, without moving, see what you can see.

I went to two places. One comes along with the box. But I'm going to spread the others over a series of 'Wordless' posts.

They were all taken from the same spot on a narrow path on a crumbling cliff that runs down through blackberry bushes, small trees and reeds to the sea. Further along, there's a badger sett. Hence its name - 'The Badger Path'.

They were all taken on 19th March 2015.

This Red Leaf is No. 1 in the series.

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I STUCK MY FOOT IN A GARDEN - and a present

I'm not a gardener. And this blog is mainly for hedgerow plants (with a bit of seaweed thrown in).

HOWEVER . . . when I went out with my camera to advertise the up-coming stuck-foot post . .  the wind was blowing and everything was waggling about: branches, leaves, grass - and me!

I'd taken only about fifteen steps before I gave up and scurried home.

So I borrowed a garden and stuck my foot there - there where walls gave some protection from the wind.

Then I plonked myself in the only available pool of sunlight and set myself to see what I could see.

I saw beautiful red cotoneaster leaves on the branches of a bush that had been grown as a standard.

I saw beautiful red cotoneaster berries in an empty terracotta flower pot.

I saw a red chrysalis (or something along those lines) in the pot-bound roots of a box bush stood in water before being untangled. And I saw a ripple of light in the water.

I saw heart shaped leaves and dead leaves.

And I saw an old vine branch with the dried out twiddly bit that would have fixed it to something if it had found something to fix itself to.

And all this time - I didn't move a foot. Not the slightest slither. A stuck foot post.

This is the idea.

There's more about it on the Stuck Foot Post Page.

Are you a Stuck Footer? If so - there will be a link box for Stuck Foot Posts on next week's Loose and Leafy. (21st - 25th January 2015)

* * *

And now for the present. Well, it's not exactly a present. It's a 'You can have this book if you review it on your blog' situation.

Featuring over 1,000 plants
RHS Companion to Scented Plants 
is an authoritative guide
to creating beautiful,
well designed gardens
that are highly scented,
and shows how scent can turn
a good-looking garden
into an unforgettable one.
Price - £25
(But your's will be a present
if you'll review it for me
'cos you are a gardener.)

It's the Royal Horticultural Society's 'Companion to Scented Plants'. It arrived before Christmas and I really have been too busy to give it proper attention. Do you have time to give it yours?

I also have a problem with this book. It's probably to do with not being a gardener. It's ever so thick. (And heavy!) It has masses of pictures and loads of information. There are chapters about

Planning Your Garden

Planting With Trees and Shrubs

Walls and Vertical Planting

Roses

Herb Gardens . . .

those sorts of things.

And each chapter has a list of plants with descriptions.

Which is all good.

So what's my problem? I like honeysuckle to be called 'Honeysuckle' and have 'Lonicera' in brackets. I like jasmine to be called Jasmine and hyssop to be under 'Hyssop' not 'Hyssopus'. I'm a heathen. A barbarian. A street urchin. Latin is useful. Latin is important. Latin should be there. But me? If I see Latin coming first my prejudices run riot and I get cross. Which is not fair to the book.

So . . .

as many of you are gardeners, there's bound to be one who can give this book its proper credit. Volunteer to review it by saying so in the comments (by the end of February) and I'll pick a person at random and post it to you. How's that?
(I'm really sorry but the offer has to apply to Europe only - (including whatever we're called - UK? GB? something along those lines!) - postage costs!)

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I HAPPENED TO STAND BY A BRAMBLE

I don't know why I stopped. Maybe it was the way the light fell on a leaf. But there are so many leaves round here. So many brambles. Non-stop brambles really. They are a backdrop to everything.

Well, I don't know. That's just how it was. I stopped. And having stopped. I saw. And the result? This. It isn't exactly a stuck foot post - but nearly. One branch. A few old leaves. A few old leaves and . . . and next year's new ones.

Here they are. Or, rather, here are a few hints. Every leaf is different. At this time of year the differences are even greater than at others. Their histories are longer and it shows. Their neighbours have gone, many of them; so their individuality is more easily seen.

It was Christmas Eve. I don't know why we like the idea of snow at Christmas. If there's meant to be snow at Christmas, fine. But here . . . it would be an oddity. Snow is a treat and if there is any it won't be till later. Christmas is a time for odd glimpses and blue skies and bright colours which leap out in cold moments. Quite a lot of gloom - then red or yellow. Thorns!

And in among the thorns - next year. 2015.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

P.S.

More about Stuck Foot Posts.

All photos in this post are of the same bramble (blackberry) branch.
They were all taken within a few minutes of each other on the afternoon of Christmas Eve 2014.

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GUNNERA

To get an idea of size - this Gunnera plant goes right up to the top left hand corner of the photo.
A plant as big as a tree with giant leaves which would be at home on a pre-historic film set.

June 22nd 2014

Congratulations to Everyone who posted about their trees in July. It's a hot month. It's a busy month (holidays to arrange perhaps) and it's tempting to assume not much is happening up there in the branches or down there in shade. But I'm pretty certain we all found it a rewarding exercise and discovered things we would never have noticed if we hadn't taken the time to stand still and look.

The Gunnera's giant leaves stretch over our heads but its huge flower
spikes are at ankle and knee level.
You may need to crouch or crawl to see them.

June 22nd 2014

I confess, as I write this, I have not yet read everyone's post. I mentioned being busy in order to get my excuse in quick!

And one of the reasons I'm behindhand is that I'm catching up with the things I didn't do while I was away in the New Forest. June is, of course, receding fast but that's simply how it is; what you didn't do then you have to do now.

It's surprising how much light reaches the ground through gunnera leaves.
From below.

In the autumn, I wrote a post about What to Expect on Loose and Leafy and I promised to introduce you to plants and scenes you'd hardly associate with Dorset. At the time, I was planning to visit The Subtropical Gardens at Abbotsbury through the seasons. Then the council dug up the road. And it stayed dug up for ages. And the idea didn't exactly go cold but did sort of temporarily shrivel so as yet . . . 

Vegetative debris lands and rests on the up-side of the leaves.

But one of the things I like about Abbotsbury Gardens is the way you can walk between massive Gunnera plants. Plants as big as trees! And one of the things I did in June (instead of being busy at home) was to visit Furzey Gardens in the New Forest where . . . (amongst other things) there are Gunneras.

It's a giant plant with giant prickles!

So I thought I'd take this as an opportunity to show you. I suspect they aren't to everyone's taste - but they definitely are to mine!

All photos in this post were taken in Furzey Gardens. Furzey Gardens is (amongst other things) part of the Minstead Project where young people and adults with learning disabilities learn to be excellent gardeners.

(I'm even more resolved now to re-visit the Gunneras at Abbotsbury!

Furzey Gardens

Abbotsbury Gardens

The Minstead Training Trust

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AN EVENING AMBLE

Setting out for walk just as the mist rolls in may be pleasant - it is - but it's not the most practical time for taking photographs for a blog. Trees I like were in shade; plants in the dullness below bushes. Streaks of sunlight landing on this but not necessarily on that.

It didn't matter. I didn't know what I was looking for. I was out on an evening amble - not a ramble, note; a little stroll nowhere in particular to see what I could see.

Spring, as I note every year, has a lot in common with autumn. Chills and warmth waltz arm in arm. There is death - last year's leaves which have clung on through winter give up and fall. It becomes clear which bushes have died and which merely dormant.

Some Alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum) are beginning to produce early flowers. Some of the gorse is flowering. We haven't had frosts. The weather has become unpredictable. Most years, you can go out in the morning and find the young Alexanders all flopped over, frost zapped. That hasn't happened (yet?) but their own special rust (Puccinia smyrnii) seems to have got a head start, bringing their leaves and stems out in bright yellow wart type growths.

I'm trying to remember who it was recently who said they didn't like the smell of Alexanders' flowers. (Was it you?) I was surprised. The accumulation of scent when the weather warms up is fantastic - delicate, ethereal yet unmissable. I am not the only one to like them They are pale yellow, large and rather clumpy and not necessarily noticeable except against a blue sky. But flies like them. Ants too.

And then I went to visit the Holm Oak (Quercus ilex).
Do you remember? I nearly chose it as 'my' tree-following tree. We've had a wet and wild winter. Over one night, this tree had to endure nigh on a hurricane force, salt laden wind. It's leaves are supposed to be ever green. Look at it now.

The light of evening was patchy. The lowering sun was tinging the Alexanders and dead gorse with a warmer glow than they'd shown in the morning. But these leaves . . . these leaves are not just being caught in a golden light. They are beautiful. But they are dying.

* * * * *

When looking for the spelling for Puccinia smyrnii I came across APHOTOFUNGI - photographs of fungi found in South West England, especially Devon and Cornwall. Devon is the next county along going west from Dorset (where I live) but even if the collection on APHOTOFUNGI had been photographs from another continent I would have enjoyed browsing the site. You might too so I've added it to the Loose and Leafy page of internet places you might go for help with identification. The list is random; sites I come across by chance and like - and remember to put there!

And a note about Tree Following - it's never too late to join the growing list of participants. (72 to date.)

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COMMENT SETTINGS, LINK BOXES AND TREE FOLLOWING

Turkey Oak - Feb. 16th 2014

Gearing up for the full-scale start of Tree Following on 7th March. The list of participants is growing. Several bloggers have already introduced their trees. Some of us (like me!) are still looking around, trying to decide which tree to chose. It's like doing warm up exercises as we approach the blocks.

This slow beginning is good. It gives us time to think about our trees, how much attention we will give them. Will it be an occasional photograph? An in depth focus on the insects which live on them through the year? The development of their fruit from blossom to drop? (Maybe there will be recipes?)

It also gives us time to iron out some wrinkles.

One of the trials of blogging is that the anti-spam settings on Loose and Leafy make it difficult for some to leave comments.

Turkey Oak. Feb. 16th 2014

So why do I not change the settings? - Because nearly all the 'anonymous' comments coming into my email box from other blogs are spam and I don't want to impose this on you. I really have thought about it.

So - this post is to say taking part in Tree Following through Loose and Leafy does not depend on you being able to leave comments.

To let me know you are taking part, you can leave a comment - but you can also email me at

looseandleafy@googlemail.com

and I'll add you to the list.

When the linky box goes up for posts on 7th March it will suggest you leave a comment. This is because it's a free box and that's part of the text included. Ignore it. If the box accepts the URL to your tree following post - well, you're away. We'll be able to find you and read about your tree - and that's what matters.

What if you don't have a blog but would like to take part? That's fine. Email me and, if we can, we'll make space on Loose and Leafy for a photograph of your tree and a paragraph about it every so often.

You might want to follow a tree by posting photos on Twitter. Twitter isn't perfect for pictures but there's no reason why we shouldn't have a list of Tree Tweeters along with the list of Tree Following bloggers.

The pictures on this page are all of a Turkey Oak, taken on 16th February 2014.
This is one of the plants beneath it - taken on the same day.

Have you thought of following a tree by using YouTube? I've experimented a little with this. Here's the link to my YouTube page. It's not very developed - seaweed being brought onto the shore, leaves rustling. Here are birds singing as the sun comes up over one of the trees I've followed. Think about it - how about doing a sound picture of your tree over the year? If you decide to follow your tree that way - let me know and we'll have a list for Tree Following on Film.

I'm Following a Tree

Carole at La Fosse - The House on the Hill - has introduced her magnificent Sweet Chestnut (Castanea sativa) 

And Gill at On the Edge Gardening has chosen a Medlar tree.

Any questions, any suggestions - ask them, make them!

(Incidentally, for those of you new to Loose and Leafy - it's not soley about trees but all sorts of hedgerow plants. Sometimes we look at urban wild plants too - here's the most recent urban plant post - Out on the Town.)

And remember - first Linky Box for full scale Tree Following start up this year will be - 7th March 2014.

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* * *

If you'd like to use the Tree Following motif

on your blog

this is its url

http://tinyurl.com/qaesqpb