Spalted birch

By pure chance I sawed up an old rotting ring of birch trunk to put it through the chipper at work. Inside on the freshly-cut surfaces was a beautiful spalting pattern - I've seen it on beech before, and even have a lovely spalted-beech bowl turned by my partner's papa, but never seen it on birch before. There was honey fungus bootlaces all over it, but perhaps other fungi have been attacking it too? Either way, the battle between fungus (fungi?) and tree have been beautifully documented, with the tree laying down its defence system by biochemically altering the wood, and the fungus eventually overcoming it and forcing the tree to draw new battleground lines. OK, a slightly anthropological view, but that's roughly what has happened. 

Veteran sweet chestnuts

The Ancient Tree Hunt is a collaboration between the Woodland Trust and the Ancient Tree Forum which aims to map all the 'ancient, notable and veteran' trees in the UK... a big undertaking but an interesting one, not least because people are getting out and thinking about all the big, old, lovely and/or important and culturally significant trees they know.

http://www.ancient-tree-hunt.org.uk/ 

I've recorded trees before, whilst working as a seasonal ranger. And after spending a rainy Sunday at the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh, collecting data for tree surveys for college work, I added two of the biggest sweet chestnuts there to the database.

One is by the pond, with nesting birds in holes and a great stag-headed quality to most of the larger branches. 

The other, perhaps more noticeable, is the big old tree standing on the corner of the rock garden - right alongside a well-travelled path from the East Gate down to the south. This one lost one of three large limbs during recent storms, and has a huge wound that looks great - it tells a story and gives an indication of the tree's life history. I hope that at least some people stop and think twice about this tree - about how it is a living being far older than any person in the world, about what it has 'seen' in its life and about what it means to preserve trees like these.

Coronet cuts

I did my first coronet cuts (more 'natural-looking' cuts that simulate a tear or snap on a branch) on a southern beech (Nothofagus) at work this week. It was hidden away in a small copse-like part of the garden, so my boss asked me to reduce about four 'large' dead limbs (to reduce the weight and prevent them falling on a fence below) but leave a couple of feet for habitat.
I've never been shown how to do it, but I've seen photos and heard descriptions, so thought I'd give it a go at ending the 'stubs' with coronet cuts. Here's some of the results:

They're probably not as good as guys who've been doing them a while, and I know they're only a small branches, but for me a step in the right direction - this kind of work is part of what I'd like to do. And it was good to be doing them in a Botanic Garden, somewhere where I never thought they'd want "untidy" looking coronet-cuts... luckily this tree was hidden away enough to get away with it.

Apple trees and lichens

Been at a Scottish Orchards event today (http://www.scottishorchards.com/)... it made me think of these pictures and the countless others that I took of the old apple trees (and the lichens on them) in an old orchard where I used to work.

Temple Newsam's sweet chestnut

A few pictures of a beautiful, ancient sweet chestnut pollard from the Leeds City Council-owned Temple Newsam park. Whoever decided on the management of this tree made the right choices - reducing the limbs in to reduce the lever-arm stress on them, and fencing off the tree to discourage people from being near it. I doubt it will fail any time soon anyway - it's so short and squat, and so well-established that it's probably going nowhere - but by keeping people away from under it, the risk of harm is even lower. Again, another example of brilliant tree management, maintaining ancient trees for their cultural significance and the biodiversity benefits they bring.

The afterlife of a tree

Spotted this tree (or its remains) walking down from the Merrick in Galloway Forest Park.

Collapsed co-dominant stems? Or something more sudden - possibly a lightning strike?

Either way, a wonderful testament to the ability and importance of trees, even after they have died. How many epiphytes grow on this structure, how many bats, beetles and other animals call it home, and how many detritivores and fungi has it fed?

And furthermore, it is as awe-inspiring as any man-made sculpture.

Call of the wild

The Botanic Gardens I work at is an important green space in the middle of a city, so it is naturally a place where people go to connect with nature, wander amongst trees and watch birds and squirrels. However, of late I've really been missing the countryside.

Not that the Garden isn't beautiful in its own way. But it's probably a symptom of my inner countryside-lover that my favourite area is a Scottish Heath Garden, a wild corner hidden away from the main paths. Here is a place full of rowans, bird and wild cherries, alder, willows, pines; rushes, gorse, broom and heather jostle for understory space with bilberry and ferns. There's no evidence of weeding or edging, and hidden away in part of the undergrowth is the remains of a cottage (although I must admit I have a feeling this was deliberately placed there "for the feel"). I love it there - so many people walk straight past it without realising. The birds soon forget you if you sit quietly and begin to flit around, singing and squabbling. And the one remaining trace of storm damage is found in the this area - a wind-blown Pinus contorta that has been forgotten about (when I started we were due to clear it up, but that's fallen by the wayside) and remains with roots exposed and crown hidden in the growth.

As for the rest of the Gardens, its a different environment to what I'm used to. We take down a tree and spend more time tidying it up than doing the work. Every last leaf must be picked up and cleared. The lawns are protected by boards, lest a piece of wood fall on them. Deadwood on the ground is few and far between, something that may actually be reducing plant health by removing nutrients that would normally be recycled back into the plants? And this only applies to the days we are doing tree work. For an arboriculture job we seem spend the majority of our time weeding, strimming and making nice, neat lawn edges, and generally tidying borders.

Days spend pulling up geraniums and willowherb which aren't 'meant' to be there make you think. For me, it's helped me realise that whilst the Garden is an important place for science, for amenity horticulture, and as an escape for city dwellers, longer-term I'd rather be out in the countryside. I'd like to work somewhere where you can leave deadwood, coming back years later to find that discarded logs have been transformed into a home for bryophytes, lichens, invertebrates, amphibians and the odd small mammal. I don't care much for having nice neat lawn edges (I chuckled earlier this week at seeing badgers making short work of an edge that was in their way) and whilst I realise that invasive species need to be controlled, do we really need to remove every wayward plant or 'weed' (some of which are quite lovely in their own right)?

Of course, I am lucky to work here; I am learning about trees in a commercial-free environment, working on some beautiful specimen trees, and I am not for a second saying this is a bad job to have. And there is wildlife in the Garden - watching bullfinches on a lawn one morning as the sun rises, hearing woodpeckers drumming whilst you're working and seeing sparrowhawks flying with food in their talons all make you pause and reflect. But this job, for all its positives, has made me realise that longer-term I want to be using arboricultural knowledge and skills in a more "wild", countryside setting.