welsh hills again

My little rowan tree took a long time to get going in spring but now it is full of leaf and going-over flower.  It stands protectively just behind the shepherd's hut. There it is, just behind the chimney, growing up out of the hedge.  To the left of the hut the boundary is holly trees, somehow with an elder growing amongst them.  You can just see the white of the elder flowers in the tree. The tree is multistemmed.  I imagine that might be as a result of the young tree being cut down with the rest of the hedge when it was smaller so that it has branched out like coppiced hazel. There are two other rowans in the field but the others are single stemmed.  They are graceful trees like that but I also like the gently spreading shape of the multi stemmed one.  If anything for me that increases the protective nature of its presence. Look up into the canopy between the two largest trunks and you can see why rowan leaves appear in designs for fabric o...

Well I am beginning to wonder whether I chose the right tree.  I can't say my rowan is doing very much.  All the other trees on Lucy's tree following blog seem to be making a bit more of a stir. There is the very slightest swelling of the buds but this particular tree remains very determinedly bare. At its feet the celandines are shining and the grass is growing. The badger path which runs beside the tree and under the fence into the next field is becoming well worn.  I wonder how many badgers are using it?  I must ask Ian to set up the wildlife camera over night up here so we can see. I am blaming the badgers for the fact that these daffodils have had their tops and flowers nibbled off.  I am not sure if badgers do have a weakness for daffodils and certainly most of ours seem to have survived unscathed but these are right next to the path - perhaps just too much temptation, like a piece of chocolate left on the worktop. There is much new ...

Encouraged by Lucy from Loose and Leafy I am joining in with a group of people following a tree for a year. Now I have to be honest and admit that I started this last year but somehow lost interest quite quickly. Shameful I know.  Last year's tree was a horse chestnut and while it excited me mightily in spring, it then spent a lot of time in the summer looking pretty much the same.  I suspect this assessment is more to do with my failing to look closely enough at what was going on than with any lack on the part of the tree. This year I wandered about looking at trees and waiting for one to choose me.  I love the really big trees by the house. I considered both of these, the sycamore by the drive and the yew by the house.  Somehow they were just too big.  I felt I was not up to the challenge of doing them justice and also they are so damn high.  There would be worlds of life up there that I wouldn't know anything about, however carefully I photograph...

Yesterday autumn roared in on a thundering wind, blowing over the bay tree, sending the wheelie bin rolling down the grass, filling the air with flying flowerpots.  On the heels of the wind came a downpour which overflowed the gutters, set the land drains spouting, hammered on the slates and turned the paths to water. It was a day for staying in the warm kitchen. Our bedroom faces east.  When I woke up this morning the sun was pouring in and the sky was a vivid blue behind the ridge on the other side of the valley.  Today has been a gold and blue day, the sun warm, the air still. The crab apple is loaded down with fruit.  This is malus Red Sentinel, planted to replace a little quince tree which slowly but surely lost the will to live.  I kept trying to persuade myself that the quince would survive, even though it would shed a branch or two every time the wind blew strong.  Eventually it split in two, falling open at its heart.  The crab apple we...

It was winter when we came here seven years ago.  There are a lot of trees on our land and along our boundary, in the hedges, standing on corners, and I couldn't believe that in winter I did not know what they were.  I have got better now at identifying trees without their leaves so I thought I would take you a walk around the edges of our property and have a look at the trees, in their winter beauty. Let's start up behind the house where three big beech trees grow on the top of the great curve of rock beneath which the house sits, tucked out of the wind.  Welsh nouns, as in French and other languages, are either masculine or feminine.  All trees are feminine words in Welsh and the Welsh for beech is ffawydden. Beech is generally a lowland tree and there are not many around here.  These three mark the boundary between us and our neighbours at the farm.  I love the smoothness of their bark and the vividness of the new leaves in spring.  Occasion...