Inspired by Street Trees 2023

About a year ago, I took part in an online writing project about urban trees, organised and facilitated by Amanda Tuke. Part of the project involved looking at trees growing in local tree pits. You can read about the trees I chose to look at here, and read about the writing that came from the workshop here. 

A few days ago, on Twitter, Amanda challenged those of us who had taken part in the writing workshop to check up on our tree pits and report back! My trees, although only five minutes walk away from where I live, are in a couple of side streets that I don't walk down very often. But today, I made a special trip to catch up with them!  

A nearby street is lined with trees, which look beautiful (though I was talking to a man who was doing his garden and he was saying how much light these trees block out from the flats and how he wishes they were smaller trees)

Looking at the tree pits, it's interesting to see how different they are. Some are almost bare earth (I wonder of some local people weed their nearest tree pit? Or are these pits naturally so sparse?) 

Some are almost entirely filled with grasses, usually Poa pratensis 

This one is almost entirely filled with Common Chickweed

And others have a variety of plants growing in them, including Common Mouse-ear

Shepherd's Purse

 

and Cleavers

It is really interesting to see the variety of plants that grow around the bases of the trees. Of course, it's not only plants, litter can gather in the tree pits, in the photo above you can see a discarded cigarette butt and there's a discarded crisp packet below 

Walking home, via shopping at Locavore, (a fairly new, ethical supermarket with a refillery and selling a variety of local produce, definitely worth checking out if you're in the area)  I took the chance to take a photo of the rowan trees outside the store. 

I then intended to take some photos of these tree pits, but my camera battery failed! So maybe next time!

Bluebells in Dalkeith Country Park

 Today we made the most of the bank holiday and visited Dalkeith Country Park, hoping for a good display from the bluebells and we weren't disappointed! 

The bluebells were in bloom throughout most of the park, looking at their best

Also in full bloom was the Wild Garlic (Ramsons) 

Greater Stitchwort 

Wood Sorrel

Wood Anemone

and Violets

 Dalkeith Country Park is most renowned for its ancient oak wood, which was established in the 11th century by monks and which has been preserved by the Buccleuch family ever since. There are so many magnificent old trees here, but natural regeneration is a problem as the roe deer (three of which leapt across the path in front of us during our walk) eat the young trees. To counteract this, the estate has planted several new oak trees, using acorns from the established oak wood and these are protected from the deer and hopefully will grow into a strong new generation of magnificent oaks. Here are some photos of the oak woods

The old buildings at the country park have been recently turned into cafés and a shop and the signage is lovely

For Nature Notes.

Wild Strawberries!

 The Wild Strawberries in Crafty Green Boyfriend's Mum's Garden are fully in bloom now

This Seven Spot Ladybird was quite happy sitting on one of the strawberry leaves

The garden generally produces a good crop of these small and delicious strawberries! 

Also in the garden, the rhododendrons are looking lovely 

As are the apple trees, which are both almost fully in bloom now, here's the eating apple tree

The cooking apple tree is the focus of this year's Tree Following posts, the most recent of which is here.

The violets are also in full bloom at the moment

It's a lovely time of the year in the garden!

The Creeping Garden by Jasper Sharp and Tim Grabham

 

 Subtitled 'Irrational Encounters with Plasmodial Slime Moulds' this lavishly illustrated book is an accompaniment to the documentary film of the same name.

I had hoped for a book that was more focused on slime moulds themselves, as I am fascinated by this group of organisms that are neither plant, animal nor fungi. However, the book takes a different approach, concentrating on the making of the film, and exploring various topics including the use of slime moulds in computing and the role of Japan's Emperor Hirohito in slime mould research. 

A couple of chapters are devoted to slime moulds and fungi in nature, but even these focus on meditations about how to find a theme worthy of a film. 

So although this book is an interesting read, it wasn't what I hoped for, and I would be very interested in finding a book that actually does focus on the biology of slime moulds! So if you have any recommendations, let me know in the comments section! 

The Creeping Garden by Jasper Sharp and Tim Grabham, published (2015) by Alchimia Publishing.

 

 

May - Walk but Don't Mow!

May is National Walking Month! If you already walk a lot, this is the ideal time to get out and about and enjoy the great outdoors in, hopefully, the lovely Spring weather. If you don't walk much, then this is the ideal time to start! You can find out more about the benefits of walking and tips for how to include more walking in your daily routine, then the Living Streets website has lots of ideas! Their main campaign is to try to inspire people to walk for 20 minutes every day during May! 

Today I walked through the Dells alongside the Water of Leith, doing my weekly river patrol.  There are lots of wildflowers in bloom at the moment, including these lovely Red Dead Nettles, Forget-me-nots and Dandelions. 

The Wild Garlic (Ramsons) are starting to bloom

as are the buttercups

bluebells (some native bluebells and some that are hybrids between native and Spanish bluebells)

and a small patch of Greater Stitchwort 

If you have a garden, you might want to consider allowing a small patch to grow wild, you might get flowers like those above appearing amongst the grass! If so, you may be interested in No Mow May! This is a call to leave your lawn to grow throughout the month, allowing flowering plants to flourish in amongst the grasses. A richer variety of flowering plants will support a greater range of insects and other invertebrates, which in turn will support a range of birds and mammals. Trevor Dines (Trevor the Botanist) has an excellent thread on Twitter, about how having areas of both short grass (cut regularly) and long grass (cut once a year in Autumn) in your garden is ideal for wildlife. He also gives tips on how best to manage this.

Tree Following May post

This year for Tree Following, I've chosen the beautiful cooking apple tree in Crafty Green Boyfriend's mother's garden. You can read the post where I introduced the tree here. 

The tree is around fifty years old and produces a lot of apples (last year was a bumper year and I gave apples to colleagues, neighbours, students in my writing classes as well as friends!). The apples are excellent in apple crumble or just stewed and eaten with custard or added to porridge. 

Here are some recent photos of the tree:

The cooking apple tree is the one in the background, in front of the shed. The tree to the right in the photo is an eating apple tree (the garden also contains two plum trees and a pear tree!).

Looking up into the tree

close-ups of the flowers just about to open

It's amazing to see how quickly the buds are opening, here is a photo taken on 20 April:

and the same buds a week later: