Snapshots of the day: The pink and the white

I have always admired this shrub in a neighbour’s garden – it always looks so healthy and full of blooms. I knew it was a rose but have only just discovered that it is a Japanese rose, Rosa rugosa…

In a garden beside a nearby street there is an excellent arum lily planted in the of a Magnolia tree…

…I always thought these rather funereal and called them arum lilies, but they are also known as call lilies and are a species of Zantedeschia

2023 tree following 5: Aphids abound

Greenfly seen through a leaf of the sycamore I am following in Llandaff Fields, Cardiff

Although the weather is still changeable here in South Wales, the temperatures were just starting to rise when I visited the big sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus) in Llandaff Fields this week.

The flowers have now dropped off and the fruits are preparing to form, although I could see no sign of the winged seeds yet.

What I did see, but only when I enlarged a photograph of some of the leaves high on the tree, was a host of greenfly – I assumed they were the same as those on rose bushes but I have discovered that there is a specific sycamore aphid out and about in May called Drepanosiphum platanoidis, which likes sycamore. Those on roses are likely to be Macrosiphum rosae…

Here are my photos from the visit on Thursday afternoon…

Tree following link box for May 2023

Leaves of beech (Fagus Sylvatica) in the rain this week

Here we are again for the monthly tree-following get-together. It’s May already but the weather here in the UK has remained very unseasonable, cold and wet. It has made the annual early bank holidays quite miserable.

But this weekend has been the celebration of our new King Charles III’s Coronation with an extra day off work to go with it. So I hope to go to visit the sycamore tree I am following in Cardiff’s Llandaff Fields at some time this week.

I hope you have all had a chance to inspect your trees and look forward to seeing everyone’s news and pictures once again.

I’m sure you regular tree followers will have something to report. Point to any tree-related post you would like to share, using the link box below. And please don’t forget to leave a comment.

The link box is now open for contributions and will stay open until 7pm GMT on May 14.

If you are new to tree following, read all about the idea here, although, as I keep oin saying, I really must update that page when I have the chance…

Snapshots of the day: Relaxed sparrow hawk

Male sparrow hawk (Accipiter nisus) on the garden fence

For once I was lucky. I often see birds in the garden when I am at the kitchen sink but don’t have my camera to hand. This time a male sparrow hawk was sleepily preening itself on our highest fence and didn’t seem to be in a hurry. Maybe it was satisfied after a good meal. I had time to dash upstairs to get my camera and the magnificent bird stayed for maybe 10 minutes, fluffing up its downy feathers.

Once or twice the hawk looked me straight in the eye

2023 tree following 4: Green leaves, green flowers

Sycamore leaves and flowers

It has been a very wet week but luckily the Easter bank holiday weekend was fine if a bit blustery, so I managed to visit the big sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus) in Llandaff Fields before starting back at work after the welcome break.

So much has happened and the tree now has flowers as well as fresh green leaves.

Here are my photos from a visit on the afternoon of Easter Monday…

Tree following link box for April 2023

New growth on a self-seeded wild cherry tree in a pot in my garden – I doubt if it will ever flower

Welcome to the April 2023 tree-following get-together. Spring has come to the northern hemisphere and I look forward to seeing everyone’s news and pictures once again.

Here in South Wales after a very wet March the weather is changeable again for April.

It’s the Easter Bank Holiday weekend so I hope to visit the sycamore I am following in Llandaff Fields this week. If the greenery in my garden is anything to go by the tree should be well into leaf by now. We shall see.

I’m sure you regular tree followers will have something to report. Point to any tree-related post you would like to share, using the link box below. And please don’t forget to leave a comment.

The link box is now open for contributions and will stay open until 7pm GMT on April 14.

If you are new to tree following, read all about the idea here, although, as I continue to say, I really must update that page when I have the chance!

Snapshots of the day: Spring colour

Primroses in the garden on April 1 – they have been in bloom for quite a while

I apologise for neglecting my blog lately – I am still ridiculously busy and on top of that we have been decluttering and decorating a study / box room for a few weeks so I haven’t really had any down time to “play”.

Three years after the first coronavirus lockdown and my move to working from home I feel like I am still more or less “shielding”. I go out rarely but at least I have stopped wearing a face mask when I catch a bus into the city centre occasionally.

Luckily the garden still gives some solace as Spring arrives. The plants are waking up and the songbirds have been very vocal – blackbirds (Turdus merula), song thrushes (Turdus philomelos), robins (Erithacus rubecula) and notably a blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla). The long-tailed tits (Aegithalos caudatus) visit almost daily, a pair of goldcrests (Regulus regulus) come at least weekly and one morning I heard the chiffchaff (Phylloscopus collybita) for the first time this year.

I still think of this bleeding heart as Dicentra spectabilis, but the new name is apparently the cumbersome Lamprocapnos spectabilis – I bought this plant at the Cardiff RHS Show many years ago and it still flowers every Spring

Self-seeded violet in a pot – we have lots of these and they are messy but cheerful

The jay has been in the garden more often this year

2023 tree following 3: Green is busting out all over

The sycamore in the distance, framed by alder catkins

Well, I’m really cutting this fine – just in time to publish my tree-following blog post for the month.

I had hoped to visit the sycamore in Llandaff Fields when it snowed last week, but the snow only lasted an hour or two before it turned to rain.

So I ended up visiting today, as the cold and snowy weather from the north and warmer, wetter weather from the south competed and left South Wales with a window of a few hours of sunshine.

Here are my photos from a visit today (March 14)…

Tree following link box for March 2023

Birch in March

Welcome to the March 2023 tree-following gathering. I look forward to seeing everyone’s news and pictures once again. Spring is on its way, so if you haven’t chosen a tree to follow for the year yet, now seems like a good time.

Here in South Wales as March begins it is mostly cold and dry with easterly winds – although snow has been forecast for some areas later in the week.

I hope to visit the sycamore in Llandaff Fields this week and it would be wonderful to picture it in snow – but we rarely have a covering of the white stuff so near the warm coast of the Bristol Channel.

I’m sure you regular tree followers will have something to report. Point to any tree-related post you would like to share, using the link box below. And please don’t forget to leave a comment.

The link box is now open for contributions and will stay open until 7pm GMT on March 14.

If you are new to tree following, read all about the idea here, although, as I have been saying for ages, I must update that page when I have the chance. Maybe this year!

Snapshots of the day: Footway find

Little man on the pavement, about two inches tall…

I am always looking down at the pavement – partly so that I don’t trip over anything. But I also like to spot unusual things. I wondered what this little plastic person was and when I passed it a second time I flipped it over…

…it looked like a Christmas elf decoration of some sort