Now an exhibition and web site

This blog has now spawned an exhibition and a website.

The Exhibition, called "Oak: Autumn into Spring" is currently (February 2012) in the church at Minstead in the New Forest, close to the site of the tree. I hope the exhibition will move on elsewhere in the course of time. Email if you would like to put it up.

The website is at www.mellersh.org/oak. It has a selection of pictures of the tree at a good size. It looks nice and enables you to get a quick view of the changes. I hope you'll take a look. Nick

The oak in full leaf with New Forest ponies underneath

The leaves are come now. Over the next few weeks the only changes that will be seen is the slow darkening and toughening of the leaves. Little seedling oaks springing up under the big one, only to be eaten by the caterpillars that fall from the tree canopy when it rains. Acorns that fall rarely live beyond a year. Those that produce oaks are normally transported elsewhere by jays or other birds or animals. Come the middle of August oaks bring out more leaves the "Lamas Growth."

I will try to photograph that and will follow the progress of the oak apples from time to time. See a previous post for more about them. Soon I hope to put up a slideshow of the changes since last October. Meanwhile you can follow other trees in the sister blog Treewatch.

The story of the little oak

October lots of leaves but starting to turn

November the leaves are falling

December no leaves, and start of March just a hint of the buds.

The end of April and the beginning of May. The leaves are back.

As well as the big oak I have been taking pictures of another smaller oak (probably about 60 years old and still quite small). These are the pictures from the end of October fully leaved after the summer to the start of May. Fully leaved in new green.

May Day and Oak apples

First day of May and the leaves are getting thicker. I saw my first New Forest foal this morning. Standing awkwardly on it's four legs, with the legs spread out slightly wider at the bottom. They are tall but very thin and narrow. Didn't get a pic. Let's hope I find one under the tree.

I didn't photograph the foal but I did find an oak apple on a tree where I have been photographing the buds as they develop. Oak apples are the home of the larvae of gall wasps. In spring the gall wasps lay eggs in the leaf buds of oak and some chemical in the eggs causes the oak to develop these protective "apples" where the larvae live and are fed by the oak. Seems a bit improbable doesn't it? ... but you haven't heard the half of it.

This type of gall wasp (there are about a dozen that live on oak trees) is called Biorhiza Pallida. Alternate generations can fly. The flying ones are sexed and the females mate and lay eggs on the roots of oak trees. These eggs cause another type of gall on the roots. Eventually a flightless all-female generation is born from these galls. This generation all crawl up the trees and lays eggs in the leaf buds that cause the oak apples to grow. How did it all start? Which generation came first? You might well ask but don't expect a sensible answer.

Here is a picture of the wasps, presumably the wingless generation on the first and the winged second. These pics are taken from a German beetle site. The first pic is by B Belman and the second by R Werner. The site is:

http://www.koleopterologie.de/

I shouldn't really have used them but I thought you would like to see the pics

The galls seem to be all over this particular oak. I suppose lots of wasps laid eggs in its roots. It is less healthy than the main oak. I wonder if galls come more on old oaks like ivy. Or if they actually harm the oak. Anyone know?

PS Oak Apple day is May 29 to celebrate the restoration of Charles II who had previously hid in an oak tree at some battle or the other. People wore oak apples.

Spring is getting ahead of me

Tomorrow will be different. I'll have time show a detailed version of how the oak has changed - or maybe I won't. Anyway the tree will have changed even if I haven't. So I'd better try to catch up. Here is the oak as it was yesterday. The leaves are showing now all right! And there's a chance to compare the new green with the old green in the title picture taken last October. And to look back to just over three weeks ago when it was covered in snow.

April 10: Back to the spring

The green is there again. Soon the whole tree will be smothered in leaves.

Snow in April

For the first time for maybe ten years we had snow today. Quite a lot of it. I was out to take pictures while it was still falling.

The green that we saw coming was covered in white. But not for long. Unlike the few sad remaining daffodils the oak will come through unmoved. Tomorrow it will be greener still.

April 4 - Yes the green can be seen

Now for sure the green is there for real. You're not left wondering whether it is your fond imagination that sees a green halo around the tree. It's there the tree is green al around.

The buds start opening from the top with the lower ones not open yet. Like leaf-fall, leaf appearance is sudden. We've just had three or four warm days and suddenly the leaves are starting to open. Oh wonder of wonders!

Here you can see them looking up into the branches.

And here is a close up of the new leaves and the little oak flowers.

January, February, March the buds are swelling and the leaves almost here!

January

February

March


There's a smidgen of a smidgen of colour round the oak

Like a little misty halo, like a shifting orange smoke.

There's a whisper of a whisper of flowers on the ash

Like tiny threads of cotton, like a greeny-yellow rash.

And for sure, there on the chestnut, there's a swelling sticky bud

(Though the fields around are soaking and the cows knee deep in mud.)

And the primroses are blooming, and it's fast becoming clear

There's a rumour of a rumour that spring is really here.

Christmas Eve

When the sun is weak and the nights are long

You hear earth singing a different song.

The mist rises white from the grass all around

Life stirs in its sleep underneath the ground.

The deep dark earth, soon to be our home,

This is the place from where visions come.

The visions rise and seem to me

As solid as the trunk of the old oak tree.

And none would believe them if they didn't know

That something like the oak from dull earth would grow.

And just as improbable and just as odd

To this dark earth came the son of god.

Dec 8 - Another wet day and a rest for the blog. See you after Christmas

Puddles, puddles, puddles. It's a wet day and the water sits on the top of the forest lawns. It takes ages to sink in which, I seem to remember, is because of the iron pan under the first few feet of soil which makes the New Forest bad agricultural land. And that is why it remained a forest. It wasn't worth making a fuss about so nobody did. So when we see the ground puddle-covered we should be grateful to the iron pan. Without that, our lovely forest would probably be concreted over.


A rest for this blog
This blog will rest for a bit although I am continuing to keep a record of the tree. I'm working on a definitive series of pics to show the leaf fall in stages and maybe a movie. This will take time so take a look after Christmas when you have a spare moment and wonder at the leaf change and fall over this sunlit autumn.

But another blog here
Meanwhile I have been persuaded by my daughter to start a St Nicholas Diary blog - so click here to go there. It concerns the trials of Santa Claus as he gears himself up for Christmas. If you want your grandchildren, your children (or yourself) to have a special mention in this blog email me or post a comment on the blog. I'll ask St Nick to see if he can oblige.

Dec 6 UK - Dark day for dark thoughts

Almost pitch dark when I got down to the tree today. But eh outline of the tree looks wonderful against the dark sky.

We had the "Prayer of a tree" yesterday. It's nice - but it's really the prayer of a tree lover. It's a human prayer. The thing that has struck me most as I have worked on this blog is the complete "tree-yness" of trees. They live separate vegetable lives to us and probably are more indifferent to us than rocks and stones. At least, if rocks and stones ignore us, we don't think they are alive. Whereas trees seem almost like people. But they are not. As of trees their "vegetable love doth grow, vaster than empires and more slow." Almost true as the mycillae (is that what I mean - the root fungus anyway) of one would encircle the world and joins trees in some sort of web at least forest wide.

In searching around for a definitive version of the tree prayer last night I came across this. "An apple is the prayer of a tree." It sounds intriguing, but I don't know what it means either, so I just pass it on.

I think most likely the tree prays "send my roots rain." Maybe it prays that its acorns will fall off and give its branches a rest, maybe that the caterpillars will stop itching in the leaves. These are the equivalents of what most humans pray for. And quite right too. People spend a lot of time praying for more complex things too, mostly that that they won't live as ghastly wrecks. Trees seem to attain an amazing beauty however they grow. "What I do is me for that I came." No agonising for trees.

Look at the form of our tree as it rears up into the sky. That's something to wonder at.

Here are the quotes which I have misused tonight:
Vegetable Love comes from Marlowe's poem to his Coy Mistress where he is encouraging his mistress to "make much of time" as we poets say when we want to hurry someone into bed. It has nothing whatever to do with trees.
"Rocks and stones and trees" comes from Wordsworth's poem about the death of his love Lucy. Said by many to be his best.
"Send my roots rain" is from Gerard Manley Hopkins. I now find. It's an agonised poem of complaint about the injustice of God. Just what I say trees don't pray. Though how would I know.
"What I do is me" is Hopkins too. There's a pic of him on the link. Gosh he looked girly in his youth. Maybe nowadays he's be a member of a boys band.

The Marlows is the most fun for a dark winter night but the others are marvellous poems. If you want to see my two pennorth on prayer you can click here. I've just re-read it. Time I followed my own advice!

December 4 & 5 - A woebegone horse, the buzzards, and a tree prayer

Well it was a nasty blurry day yesterday and here is a photo to match of a woebegone horse in front of our tree all out of focus and blurry. This was on the 4th. Today the 5th was a bit sunnier and here is a picture of Audrey carrying hay to her horses in a field nearby. Maybe the woebegone horse was hoping to intercept her. As you can see, there is still a lot of water lying on the forest lawns. Audrey seems to be stepping warily through it. And the soggy black leaves soak it up.

And here are the buzzards. They flew mewing over the trees as I was photographing yesterday. Probably a pair and this year's baby I would guess. Usually you see buzzards in two's but sometimes you can see six or so at a time.

Our local forester Geof sent me this "Prayer for a tree". Rather nice.

The Prayer of the Tree :
Anon.

You who pass by and would raise your hand against me, harken ere you harm me,

I am the heat of your hearth on the cold winter night,

the friendly shade screening you from summer sun.

And my fruits are refreshing draughts quenching your thirst as you journey on.

I am the beam that holds your house, the board of your table,

the bed on which you lie, the timber that builds your boat.

I am the handle of your hoe, the door of your homestead,

the wood of your cradle, the shell of your last resting place.

I am the gift of God and the friend of man,

You who pass by, listen to my prayer and Harm me not.

Thoughts on trees, birds, beasts, prayers and humans tomorrow I hope. For now goodnight with a rather nice picture of a bramble leaf still in autumn greens and yellows with a tiny holly plant behind it. The bramble lives on the small scrubby set of bushes that grows round the roots of the tree. It tries vainly to climb up to the branches,

Decmber 3: UK - The trees are dormant - wither the blog?

Well the leaves are gone. There is no two ways about it. On both the big tree and the small one.

And for the next few months there will be hardly any change in the tree that we will be able to see. There won't be much change in the bits we can't see either, as the roots become pretty much as dormant as the top of the tree.

There will be action under ground and even more under the leaf litter where the leaves will be recycled and their goodness will seep back into the soil for the tree to use again next year. Probably this year's acorns, the few that there are of them after a poor mast year, will be forming a tap roots. But we won't see any of this.

So wither the blog? In a week or so I expect it too will become dormant until the spring. (Except for a flurry if we get snow or more photogenic frosts.) But first I must tidy up properly. Turn the series of photos into movies or slide shows and put then up somewhere for the record. Try to summarise, if only for myself, what I have learned as the blog progressed. Try to continue to keep a record of the tree. Maybe still every day. Maybe only once a week or so. Try to prepare so we can catch the English tree in spring and the New Zealand one in autumn. Maybe try to arrange for photos of Californian oaks and oaks from elsewhere. Meanwhile there are still good photos to be taken. Here are a couple more. First the wonderful trunk in the last of the evening's winter sunshine.

And last, the sunset as I went up the hill from the tree to my home.

Dec 2 UK - A wild windy day

The wind blew hard today and the oak was further denuded. But it hardly shows any more there are so few leaves.


The little oak is nearly as bare as the big one although it kept its leaves for a good 4 weeks after the big one started showing signs of colour turning and leaf-fall.

As well as the two trees, I've been photographing the leaves on a branch that hangs down low and has a convenient twig to grab it by. You can see it to the right of the title picture as it was back in October. Below is how it looks today.

Today is advent Sunday the start of the church's year. Perhaps the first day the tree is really bare of its leaves is a good point to start the year.

Finally a couple of pictures. One shows the depth of the leaf litter. Jeanie's boot is about 4 inches into the leaves. It is under this warm blanket that most of the action will take place over the next few months. Bacteria, and fungus, and insects will break this down overwinter while the eggs of gall wasps and the few acorns that there were wait for the spring.


The other photo shows new straight growth from the underneath of on an old broken branch. This, Hugh and Brian our tree panjandrums, tell us, is a sure sign of a healthy tree.

December 1 UK: What a difference a day makes

Well the tree looks leafless now. It isn't absolutely and maybe there are about 100 leaves if you counted them. But up till yesterday counting looked impossible. The wind, yesterday and this morning brought down lots of leaves. Below is a photo of is what must be the last leaf on the tree to stil have some semblance of green. You can see the green (well it's more like yellow, really) just in the middle of the leaf. All around this solitary leaf are the buds ready come out in March or April to bring next year's leaves in their thousands.
The last green leaf


The little tree
Here is the other tree I've been photographing. It is a tree we have watched grow up out of the hedgerow. When we came here, about 40 years ago, it was invisible just part of the hedge. But it has been allowed to grow and is now a sizable tree. Probably it was 10 years growing in the hedge before we saw it and so must be about 50 years old. The photos below show the suddenness of the leaf fall in the wind and rain. Almost all the leaves fell during one day and a night.

The tree on November 22. This tree kept its leaves much longer than the big tree. Almost as green as summer.


November 27th, still most of the leaves are there, though they are all brown now.



November 30th . Still lots of leaves but they are beginning to go in the strong wind.


December 1 - the next morning. Nothing but a ghostly halo of leaves now. Tomorrow seeing the winds are strong it is liable to be completely bare.

November 30 - The last of the leaves are going

A windy wet day and the leaves are flying. Mostly they come from another large oak, just to the left of the picture, that has more leaves on it than ours. It was dark dramatic light with the whole wood glowing with duns, and browns and oranges and just under the oak tree there was a white horse. Waiting to be mounted and to take the rider will-he nill he off to somewhere dramatic. The king of the Goblins or somewher of the kind. All very mythical and strange.

I'm pretty much used to the woods now but yesterday they seemed really dark and mysterious and reminded me of the scene in Disney's Snow White where she runs through the trashing trees. I still remember though I probably saw the film almost 70 years ago.

We were talking of trees and myth with the tree panjandrums yesterday. Bryan mentioned this book called The White Goddess by Robert Graves and I've been thinking about a poem by him about trees while I've been working on this blog. It's called "A boy in church" and ends with the memorable last verse about trees. (The title is a link.)

It’s pleasant here for dreams and thinking, Lolling and letting reason nod, With ugly serious people linking Sad prayers to a forgiving God…. But a dumb blast sets the trees swaying With furious zeal like madmen praying.

Anyway yesterday seemed very mysterious. Here is a picture that seems to show the last leaf being blown off the very top of our tree.

And here, to lighten up a bit, is a link to Panjandrum, a word that comes from a nonsense poem by Samuel Foote Perhaps a day like this is a day for "playing catch-as-catch-can till the gunpowder runs out of our heels".