Tree trail becomes a fungus foray

Jelly-like fungi on a rotting tree stump in Thompson’s Park, Cardiff

This year I will probably follow a tree in a small Cardiff park I hardly know – Thompson’s Park. But my latest search for a tree worthy of regular bulletins was overtaken by my wonder at all the fungi I saw on a damp afternoon walk there.

Thompson’s Park is one of Cardiff’s oldest, having opened to the public in 1891. I will no doubt share some general views in another post, but this time I am just excited by the fungi growing on the very old and decaying trees. Three of the species I saw were on one tall stump.

Read Full Post »

The gardens of Tredegar House

Zinnia elegans in the gardens of Tredegar House in late September, 2015

You know how it is – you go to so many places in September that you suddenly find it’s January and there are autumn visits you haven’t had time to blog about yet. So I apologise that this post isn’t topical – although it is at least colourful during these dark, wet days of midwinter.

Tredegar House in Newport, south-east Wales, was taken over by the National Trust in March, 2012. Most of the red-brick house dates from the late 17th century but I will write a separate post about the house itself. This time I want to feature the plants in bloom in the gardens in September.

Read Full Post »

Ginkgo Avenue in winter

Ginkgo Avenue, Bute Park, Cardiff

I was toying with the idea of following a Ginkgo biloba or maidenhair tree this year, but I have been unable to find a single one close at hand that I can visit every month. What I have found is a whole avenue of Ginkgo trees in Cardiff’s Bute Park. So rather than single out just one to follow every month I am going to visit the avenue less often, to see how it changes in the four seasons.

Read Full Post »

William Smith – Father of English Geology

Face to face with William Smith – a bust of the man by Joseph Brogden Baker of Scarborough and a portrait painted in 1837 by Hughes Forau

Have you heard of William “Strata” Smith? Well I hadn’t until 2001, when I read a review in a weekend magazine and bought Simon Winchester’s book about him, called The Map that Changed the World. He has been one of my heroes ever since.

Read Full Post »

Tree following link box for January 2016

Seed balls of the London plane tree (Platanus x acerifolia) are still decorative in January

Welcome to my third monthly tree-following link box after taking over the project from Loose and Leafy. The box is now closed but you’ll find everyone’s links at the bottom of the post. Go there now if you don’t want to listen to me wittering on!

Although some tree followers choose a tree in one spring and pursue it through to the next, personally I like to follow for a calendar year so I start looking in January. But whenever you start, how do you select your tree?

Read Full Post »

2015 tree following 12: Back to the beginning

Seed capsules of Paulownia tomentosa on January 5, 2016

As the year turns and the sun starts to head back from the south I count myself blessed that I followed such a wonderful tree in 2015. My empress tree (Paulownia tomentosa) has had something new to show every month and even now she is not exactly the same as she was when I first met her in Cardiff’s Bute Park, this time last year.

Read Full Post »

Lovely weather for wetlands

The Newport Wetlands on Boxing Day

Very heavy rain throughout December and over Christmas and the New Year here in South Wales means the weather hasn’t really been good for anything. We have been lucky to miss the flooding that has hit the North of the UK, but it has still been so miserable that it has put a damper (or dampener) on our seasonal gallivanting.

Usually we make it to West Wales, but this time the highlight was just the Newport Wetlands nature reserve on Boxing Day.

Read Full Post »