Wild Cherry

This photo and the one below are from Kristina Hayward. Kristina is an excellent amateur photographer whose photos just get better and better.

You can see some of her work here : http://www.flickr.com/photos/ibland/

It is well worthwhile looking back through the photos, or going to the themed collections on the right hand side. Kristina comes from Sweden and lives near Garth within the Glen Lyon catchment......hence the mixture of photos on her site.

Well done Kristina.....

More cherries...........

Winner of our 'Guess the Tree' competition at Big Tent Festival

Here is Rachael from Edinburgh who was soooooo excited to be the winner of the oak box with the cute little drawers in it.  Rachael said she would 'treasure it forever'.

Well done Rachael and we will see you next year at Big Tent (if not before).

The Birks of Aberfeldy

Camserney Community Garden Today

Newly planted native trees

These are some of the many species that we recently planted out as an educational woodland on Aberfeldy Golf Course, 15 each of 46 different species of native trees and shrubs, plus some of the more common non-natives and conifers. The idea is that people can find all our tree species in one spot, and learn how to identfy them.

After a very hot and dry early part of ths summer where the newly planted trees just sat there and did very little, the recent rain has encouraged a flush of fresh growth, and many of them are putting on height quite quickly at present. You can see the newly unfurled leaves in this picture.

This is a silver birch. You can tell that it is a healthy tree by the size and shine on the leaves.

This tree stake was not hammered in far enough and will have to be cut down a bit. The stake needs to be below the level of the tube to avoid damaging the tree in windy conditions, when the bark can get rubbed and scarred, creating weakness in the tree, or possibly even de-capitating it.

Small details........big consequences......

Looking along the Tay

Sessile oak

Ash

....not a great specimen.

Not ash....but walnut.....

........tricky spotting the difference at this age.......

Wild Cherry, Prunus avium

Bird cherry, Prunus padus

Whitebeam

Rowan

Crab Apple, malus sylvestris

Silver birch

Downy birch

Aspen

Common Alder

Two alders, growing quickly.......

Goat willow

The fresh growth here is a purple colour....it would actually be quite difficult to identify these leaves at this stage if you did not know already what the tree planted was.

Hawthorn

Blackthorn

Himalayam balsam

Not Himalayam balsam.......

.......not himalayam balsam but Dog's Mercury, an ancient woodland indicator species.

Big Tent Festival 2010

Here is a shorter than usual Chris manning our stall at the Big Tent Festival in Fife this weekend.

Lots of greeny topics, good food and music and, of course, we met loads of people who loved trees.

A busy weekend at Big Tent - lots of families enjoying the stalls and entertainment.

The sun is back again........

A shaded spot by the Tay

Big water on Tayside

This was Aberfeldy Golf Course yesterday after 24 hours of heavy rain. Just a few weeks ago, we had a serious drought. Amazing...!!

Raging torrent

.......normally just a little burnie.

Stronafian Forest

Been looking at Stronafian Forest in Cowal. This is part of Scotland's forest: the National Forest Estate, but it has been placed on the disposals list, so it is for sale. The Colintraive & Glendaruel Community Development Trust are interested in buying the plantation, and we've produced an options paper to help them.
The forest is mostly an upland sitka spruce plantation, although there are some areas of native woodland.

Committed to woodland restoration

Scottish Native Woods makes a long term commitment to woodland restoration.

In the year 2000 we helped a owner of an ancient woodland secure a forestry grant to regenerate part of the woodland by erecting a deer fenced exclosure. The browsing levels, a consequence of the high numbers of roe deer, meant that the young tree seedlings could not grow & establish above the grass.

Over the last 10 years we have visited the site, returning to the same locations or fixed points to monitor the changes that have taken place.

In 2000 the site was a grassy area. I think the photographs below speak for themselves!

Fixed Point A - Photo taken in summer 2006

Fixed Point A - Photo taken in summer 2010


Fixed Point B - Photo taken in summer 2006




Fixed Point B - Photo taken in summer 2010

The tree regeneration is so dense that the photo was taken outside the exclosure.

For scale the cane in the photo is 1.5 metres.

It is hoped that over the next couple of years the fences will be removed.

Visit to Smeaton Lake Arboretum

This is a cracker of a Giant Sequoia (sometimes called Wellingtonia) - I couldn't guess its height but it is neck crickingly tall.  We used to call these punch trees because of the soft spongy bark that didn't hurt your fist when you punched it.

Smeaton Lake is near East Linton and home to many native tree species as well as some lovely exotics.

The woodpecker damage is very obvious on this sequoia but it doesn't seem to harm it in the long term.

Although this tree may be a youngster as redwoods go it probably has bark more than 30cm thick.

Some chunky burrs on this old sycamore

Close up of the fern growing on the burrs on this old sycamore

Interesting texture on this old yew

This is some Rhododendron (not ponticum) - thought it had lovely bark.

Rowans in the Glen

Cast your mind back to a few months ago when all was covered with snow ......

These old rowan (Sorbus aucuparia) trees growing near an old croft site in the North East show the damage caused by hungry rabbits during last winter.

The rabbits however did not remove all the bark surrounding the trunk of the tree. The remaining small sections of bark continue to allow food and water to flow resulting in these old trees coming into leaf again this year as well as producing blossom and potentially a bumper crop of berries for the autumn thrushes.

Hopefully this heroic effort does not contribute to the early demise of these trees.

Twinflower Delight

This summer our North East Manager is busy surveying a number of sites where new native woodland schemes are proposed.

This week I came across a lovely sight near a group of Scots pine trees on a heather moor.

The delicate pink flowers are Twinflower (Linnaea borealis) only 2.5" tall. The name of the plant describes the two bell-like flowers which hang on either side of the stem.

Twinflower is a rare plant of the eastern pinewoods and some mature undisturbed pine plantations. The joy was to find such a large clump flowering.

Can you spot the twinflowers in this picture?

Two deers grazing in Glen Lyon

Closer........

.......grazing quietly.