Toft Garden Trees 1

After sessions at Paxton Pits identifying trees, I decided a catalogue of what is in my Toft (Cambridgeshire) garden would be a good plan. Hopefully this first batch are correct - note to self - label twigs as I remove from tree/bush as some are very difficult to distinguish.  We start with an oak kindly given to me as a birthday present about 20 years ago, now a fair-sized tree that needs the leader shoot cut back every year or two - host to a huge number of insects - thanks Tricia Kreyer

Mosses and Lichens at Paxton

The wetter wooded areas of Paxton Pits rival Wistman's wood in Devon for the variety and amount of lichens and mosses attached to the trees. The first image is a single shot but many of the others are focus-stacked landscapes to give maximum depth of field. I enjoyed the variety of greens and shapes of fallen trees etc

Icy River Walk

As I missed one bus home after an eye appointment in Cambridge today, I walked across Coe Fen to pick up the next in Newnham. Although it was pretty chilly and lots of frozen areas, nothing to compare with my first winter in Cambridge - a picture here from the press in January 1963 of people skating in the river outside the Garden House Garden.

Happy New Year to 'Old Friends' in Toft

These two Hawthorn trees in Toft's Great Meadow (yes there are two!) are old friends that I have known and watched grow together in perfect harmony for the nearly 60 years. Their branches make a perfect shape as if they are one. I do not know if they started as one very small sapling that split or two that germinated together. In the Churchyard the Snowdrops and Aconites are showing quite a few blooms. A bit sombre in monochrome but it has been very grey recently!!

Hardwick Wood Coppicing etc

 Any Saturday through the winter months that I am free, I join a conservation party in Hardwick Wood to do a bit of coppicing (contact for details of Saturday and Sunday work parties in Cambridge area info@ccv.org.uk). I first started coppicing in 1962 at Hayley Wood so have had a bit of practise over the years. I walk up and back from the wood - about a 3 mile round trip so plenty of exercise. Coppicing is a traditional woodland management technique that dates back to the Stone Age involving cutting branches at their base to create a ‘stool’ where new shoots will grow - best suited to hazel, but can be applied to sweet chestnut, ash and lime. The original use of coppicing is still maintained in Hardwick  producing firewood and long straight poles for fencing, building and in the garden as bean poles. Coppicing is also thought to improve the biodiversity of a woodland area by opening it up to the sunlight and allowing a wider range of plants to grow. 

Here some images on my walk (including a distant Addenbrookes site!!), of the coppicing area at the start of the process and of the ancient woodland areas (with hundreds of Ash seedlings (reaction to Ash die-back?).  The tall single hazel shoots in the image will be laid into adjacent bare areas to sprout and fill the gaps in the hazel regrowth).