Norsey Wood Tree Identification Walk

These are my notes from today's Tree Identification walk.

Ash - one of the trees I recognise, it was covered before I got started

Hazel - one of the trees I recognise, it was covered before I got started

Oak (sessile), acorn has no stork, leaf has a stork. straight trunk
Oak (English) acorn stork, leaf no stalk

Field maple, paired leaves, Ridge branches, palm like leaves oldest at Downham church (St Marys)
Sycamore (maple family) red stork

- black spots{tar spots} fungus
- dormice feed on it honeydew aphids

Sweet chestnut (bought here by the Romans?) alternate leaf

- coppiced - useful timber. Fissures are stretch marks. Pale blotches are lichen.
- pollarding - cutting above ground

Broom prefers acidic soil (in pea family) root nodules fix nitrogen

Gorse (which we didn't see) has spines

Birch heart shaped leaf, uneven teeth, catkin tree males long, female tiny flower

- hermaphrodite
- pioneer tree - quick to colonise

Hawthorn lobed leaf variable - single seeded. 1 stigma

- rose family
- bark platelets flake off

Midland hawthorn (which we didn't see) - ancient woodland - berry is 2 seeded. 2 stigma

Laburnum elder rose

Laburnum wayfaring tree

Blackthorn - spines but less on older trees - sloes

Spindle tree pink flowers, orange berries. Very poisonous. Lichens grow on branches

Elder leaf smell, flowers and fruits - insects & starlings Wart on stem (20ft tall) jelly ear fungus golden yellow

Holly, less spiny as it gets older

Fungus russula, the red is washed out by the rain

Hornbeam dropping branches, similar to beech, rough, serrated, curled, raised pronounced vein. Hairs in axel point veins meet stem, bracts with seeds - finches squirrels, dormice
-bark smooth very dense timber, used for cogs in flour mills

Common Buckthorn food plant for brimstone butterfly
Leaves in small groups

Goat willow    Early sulphur yellow catkins, Fissured trunk with starbursts
Leaves - rough upper, wavy edge, greyish underneath, oval, almost round
brittle twigs

Aspen (poplar) succouring young heart shaped, goes circular
Flattened stalk of leaf - leaf trembles

Cherry (wild) very serrated, leaves in clusters (rosette), gnarly stork, grooved stalk. Black glands near leaf bottom Bark grey rings around trunk

Rowan (mountain ash) 7–8 pairs of serrated leaflets. Flat head of white flowers

Darters dragon fly

Trees Down

The tree surgeons arrived with six guys shortly after 8am this morning.  By 9:30am the trees were down, three of them had left to go to another job and the remaining three were struggling to get their grinder working.  The videos show the trees coming down.

They made light work of our precariously angled holly, and the silver birch didn't take much longer.  This second video is taken from the community garden. 

 

We would rather not take the trees down, but both of them are responsible for damaging the fence and we have to keep the fence in good repair - mainly to keep Brody from exploring places he shouldn't.  At least the wood will get used.  The trunk and larger logs have been left for the community garden people to make into benches.

Tree Damage

We have been in our house about a quarter of a century.  For most of that time, we have encouraged the trees near the boundaries to grow. We like trees around the edge of the garden.  However, it is not a huge garden, reasonable by Billericay standards but not really large enough to support mature trees.

A couple of years back we had to remove a silver birch - a tree that Andrew had planted, that was leaning at a precarious angle.

There is also a silver birch at the back of the garden, with an oak tree close by.  I'm hoping the oak can stay.

My foot gives a sense of scale and helps to show just how far the concrete gravel boards have been 'bent' by the birch.  The piece of fence was originally bought to confine Brody, but was never used.  It is a good temporary barrier to keep him from exploring a new garden.

The holly tree is at an alarming angle, but does not point in the direction of the shed.  If it fell, the worst victim would be next door's fence, which is already supported on a cut gravel board that allows its roots to pass under the fence.  I'm unsure whether the tree on the right is part of the one tree or separate.  If it is separate, the roots must be completely mingled.

These pictures record the before situation.  More when the trees are down.  In that time I will work out how to replace them too, I hope.