Broadwater Warren

It is July already and it warm among the heaths, pines and bogs of Broadwater Warren near Tunbridge Wells.

One afternoon I found this pine tree embraced by a silver birch: a remarkable instance of a plant's tenacity. I suppose if the pine were felled, and the birch with it, the latter might send up coppice shoots and survive, while the pine would not.

Later I explored the peaty pools near Broadwater Bridge. Black and stagnant with bright green borders of sphagnum moss and areas of tussock sedge (the plant in the picture), they give a feel of what the Weald woodlands might have been like in the past.

Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) in flower

The flowering of the may is, to some pagans, a signal that Beltane has arrived, that summer has started. I like this as starting summer at Midsummer on 21 June seems rather odd.

So I offer you the hawthorn flowers photographed on May Day, 1 May, in Brickwall Deer Park, East Sussex, England.

Veteran oak in the High Weald

As it is National Tree Week (22 November - 3 December), I thought I would post a picture of a wonderful ancient oak tree I came across a few days ago. It is deep in the countryside to the south of Burwash Weald, East Sussex and clearly has been pollarded long in the past. Despite the fact that its trunk is half missing and hollow it seems to be in robust health, though the more horizontal branches will be getting very heavy and will eventually fall.

It probably should be re-pollarded in stages, but this is a tricky course of action and it will be essential to get advice from experts in the management of ancient trees. The longer it survives, the more chance there will be for some of the invertebrates and lower plants associated with this kind of habitat to colonise the middle-aged oaks behind as they grow older.

Hornbeam fusion

I came across this wonderful tree (or trees) in Brede recently. It is a hornbeam, Carpinus betulus, once part of a hedging operation, maybe in the 19th century. Perhaps four shoots came up from the horizontal and survived survived to make today's silvery trunks.

The tree reminded me of Rodin's famous sculpture of the Burghers of Calais (plenty of pictures of that on the Web).