Fallen horse chestnut in Thompson’s Park, Cardiff, in June 2016
This is the story of the life after death of the horse chestnut tree (Aesculus hippocastanum) blown down in Storm Imogen in Early February. It stood in Thompson’s Park, Cardiff, and I have been keeping an eye on it all year.
The chestnut tree on January 8, already leaning and full of fungus
The chestnut tree on February 3
The fallen chestnut on February 9, the day after Storm Imogen
The chestnut on March 2
Still managing to absorb nutrition through its upturned roots, on April 8 the tree was in leaf
On April 26 the chestnut was in flower
On May 25 the chestnut flowers showed promise of conkers to come…
…but it wasn’t to be and by June 7 the tree had been trimmed of its branches and cut into logs
Just logs…
…and sawdust
Although this blackbird found the stump a useful perch
The logs still tried – on August 8 greenery sprouted
Ivy still clung to the horizontal chunks of trunk
By October 6 only the stump remained
The stump was clad in green…
There were baby trees, I assumed growing from fragments of branch, not from conker seeds?
The stump on October 25
Still sprouting
Under the stump
Another mini chestnut as autumn came to other trees
Autumn shades on November 25
Even the mini trees are starting to turn rust-coloured
Broken roots
The cut surface of the stump is starting to decay…
…with some kind of orange mould on the surface, which seemed to have a sparkly sheen from some directions – glitter in time for Christmas…
Earlier posts about this tree:
January 29: Tree trail becomes a fungus foray
February 15: Two victims of Storm Imogen
May 2: Fallen chestnut tree lives on
thank you for sharing have a blessed day
Thank you – hope you are keeping warm in this icy weather 🙂
What a wonderful documentation of the struggles and persistence of this tree! It is truly amazing to see what some organisms will do to stay alive.
You’ve got me thinking again about Dylan Thomas’s “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower”…
All the best 🙂
Nature – in all its shades and chaos – is awesome Pat. Thank you for sharing. x
And thank you for commenting 🙂
Let’s hope it grows again in the spring. A friend had an apple tree blow over, we cut it down to a stump and within a couple of years it was fruiting again.
Excellent news on your apple tree. I know they live quite a long time, but I expect some fresh growth is good for it.
All the best 🙂