TREE FOLLOWING - MAY

Have you noticed how some trees are enthusiastically greening up while others are clinging obstinately to winter? It will be interesting to find out who has leaves and who doesn't. Magnolia people are likely to have flowers. Are there hawthorn blossoms where you live? How are the bluebells doing? And if bluebells don't live where you live - are there flowers under your trees?

I find the heat of summer hard - so I've been making the most of comfortable walking weather. This is a path near The Hardy Monument in Dorset. (Not Thomas Hardy the novelist but Vice Admiral Sir Thomas Hardy, famous for being Nelson's friend at the Battle of Trafalgar.) I'd just emerged from a short stretch of woodland where bluebells were getting ready to turn the earth blue. That was ok - but there was something extra special about the evening light out in the open and about the elegance of these more widely spaced trees. There was a rainbow between them too - a massive pillar of colour that turned out to be too shy to show up in the picture.

If you have become a Tree Follower in the last two months, I'd be glad if you were to check both you and your tree have arrived safely on the Loose and Leafy Tree Following Page. I'm pretty certain someone's details went missing while I was computer-less. If it was you - very many apologies.

The Link Box is now closed. All 44 links to May Tree Following Posts can be found by clicking here.

Link Boxes are kindly created by Mister Linky's Magical Widgets.

* * *

I'm Following a Tree.
Are you?

National Trust for Hardy Monument

Wikipedia for Hardy Monument

Wikipedia for Vice Admiral Sir Thomas Hardy

Wikipedia for Battle of Trafalgar

Wikipedia for Thomas Hardy the Novelist - who also lived locally.

For more information about Tree Following, go to the Loose and Leafy Tree Following Page.

Tweet

TREE FOLLOWING LINK BOX FOR AUGUST

If you want to speed up the year - follow a tree. Isn't that how it feels?

If July was a difficult month -August will be gearing up for most of us. Leaves will have holes in. Insects will have destroyed their symmetry and pristine green-ness. Seeds will be reddening or browning depending on their parent tree. Some trunks will be disappearing in the undergrowth. In other places dry weather may have been killing off everything in sight. We'll see.

A Note About Other Projects to Join in With.

There are now two extra opportunities to leave links to your posts. The dates are spread through the year. It isn't a monthly commitment.

Looking for Wild Plants in the Streets has its own page.

And there's a one for Stuck Foot posts.

It's not possible to leave comments on either page so if you'd like to take part let me know by email

looseandleafy@googlemail.com

or leave a message on a Loose and Leafy post.

And now for your links!

The box will be open from 7am UK time on 7th of August

until 7pm UK time on the 14th

Make sure to leave the URL for your Tree Following post rather than for the blog as a whole and I suggest you write the name of your blog in the box as well as your personal name. (It makes things clearer.)

As ever, comments are very welcome and always enjoyable but by no means obligatory whatever the link box says!

Feel free to use the Tree Following logo.

I'm Following a Tree
Are You?
(It's never too late
to join in!)

You can copy it from here or use the URL http://tinyurl.com/qaesqpb .)

For Twitter use #treefollowing .

Tweet

For links to all the August Tree Following Posts
click here.

TREE FOLLOWING - THE APRIL BOX IS HERE!

Poole, Dorset, November 14th 2013

It should be exciting. We have been introduced to nearly all the trees and now's the time to find out what's been happening since last we met. Many will have changed. A month is a long time when it comes to leaves and buds and the melt of snow. Some will still be waiting for the starter's whistle. In other parts of the world, autumn is heading in. (We would specially welcome tree-followers from the southern hemisphere to broaden the atmosphere of the Tree Following project.)

If you aren't already following a tree

it's not too late to

JOIN US!

You can read more about it on the Loose and Leafy Tree Following Page.
If you are on the list
PLEASE CHECK THE DETAILS
Your blog, your name, your tree, where you are.

If you have moved your blog to another site

Please let me know.

(A couple have gone missing!)

MORE TO DO AND PLACES TO GO.
(You can skip this bit if you like and go straight to the Link Box
at the foot of the post.)

Sycamores - February 11th 2014

If you are in England, you might like also to take part in The Woodland Trust's 'Track a Tree' project.

If you'd like to know more about your kind of tree - take a look at the A-Z of trees in the left hand column of this Royal Forestry Society page.

If you are uncertain of the name for the tree you are following, Bomengids may be the site for you. (You can choose whether to browse in Dutch or English.) Neither the Royal Forestry site nor Bomengids are about trees of the world - simply of the countries they are based in. The same trees sometimes grow elsewhere too but if you are able to recommend a tree-identifying site specific to your own climate zone, let me know and I'll give a link from Loose and Leafy.

For Tree Followers in the UK and Ireland - iSpot is good in helping with IDs for trees, plants, insects, birds.

For Tree Followers elsewhere there's a Global version too.

Hawthorn, March 13th 2014

About the link box.

Please add the URL to your tree-following post rather than for your blog. (You can generally find this by clicking the post title. Copy and paste what comes up in the bar at the top of your screen.)

If you'd like to leave a comment, please do. It's good to hear from you. But if the Loose and Leafy blog settings mean you can't or don't want to - that's fine.

Please note - the Link Box is playing jokes and keeps changing the information about when it closed. I reckon we'll choose to find this mildly amusing rather than wildly irritating.

Tweet

Late addition - Carole at LaFosse missed the deadline because her internet connection failed
 - Tree Following - April
and
from Winkos
Now Where Did That Tree Go?

* * *

When a link box closes, the links to posts move to a new page.

For April links - click HERE

* * *

READY, STEADY - AND WE'RE OFF!

Tree Followers! The link box for your tree following posts is on Loose and Leafy!

I'm Following a Tree

From now on

There will be a link box on Loose and Leafy

on 7th of the month for 7 days

Every month!
And I'll try to schedule it for 7am each time.

If you are new to Link boxes:

it's best that you put the URL to a post about your tree rather than to the blog as a whole. Most people will find it by clicking on the title of their post and the correct URL will replace the blog's URL in the address bar at the top of your screen.

Three geographical notes.

Diana at Elephant's Eye has suggested we include countries in the Tree Followers list. Good idea. I'll do that.

Once that's done, you'll notice a very heavy bias to the northern hemisphere, especially to the UK and the USA. Do you know bloggers with differently arranged seasons, hotter or colder climates who would be interested in tree following? Do drop them a note and suggest it.

UK Followers - You might also like to take part in the Woodland Trust's Track a Tree project. This involves keeping and submitting records of a tree over several years to see if climate change is affecting when spring springs and autumn falls. (Tracking like this is called Phenology'.) It's more formal than Tree Following but could be done along side it.

If you could check you are in the list of Tree Followers on the Tree Following page, that would be good. If I've missed you, your tree or your blog . . . or if you haven't yet let me know you are taking part . . .

email me at looseandleafy@googlemail.com

If you are on Twitter, use the hashtag #treefollowing

Looking forward to reading your posts! Best wishes and good blogging/tweeting/Youtubeing and any other ways you can think of for Tree Following.

Tweet

(If you aren't able to leave a comment, don't let that stop you putting your URL in the box. The request for comments comes with the gadget. Although comments are always a pleasure to read, they certainly aren't compulsory!)

THE LINK BOX IS FOR MARCH IS NOW CLOSED. BUT THE LINKS HAVEN'T VANISHED. TO FIND LINKS TO ALL 56 POSTS, CLICK HERE.

__________