Ancient Trees

You would have thought they would have some basic training before being given a shovel

I've done a week long course on ecological management of sites, we wouldn't even be storing materials near trees, let alone digging a trench near one.

 

You'd have thought so Zigs especially when we are talking about national companies not some fly by nighters doing a small job. It cost over £12,000,000 to lay the new pipeline which now DOESN'T go within feet of our trees, however I discovered quite by chance their maps show the pipe does, brilliant and god help them if there is a problem with the stretch of pipe near here. Will I tell them in years to come where their pipe is?.....I'll think about it!

 

We have an area at work known as the 'old orchard'. It's the remnants of an old farmhouse orchard and contains several venerable old apple and pear trees, many of which are still quite productive. Thing is, we don't know the varieties of any of them.

In an effort to find out more, I contacted an organisation called the Suffolk Traditional Orchard Group, who are carrying out a survey to identify and map all the ancient orchards in the county and find out what varieties they contain.

As a result, I spent a fascinating couple of hours yesterday with their project manager, showing her round the old orchard. She took photographs and sample fruit from all the trees and hopes to be able to identify them all. Apparently some of the trees could be 90-100 years old.

She was also very interested in some old coppiced nut trees, mostly hazels and cobnuts. Apparently there are several different varieties of these too, some of which are quite specific to this county.

It will be interesting to find out if we have any old or unusual varieties among these old trees and if so, how we can go about preserving and maintaining them. Also, what were their uses and keeping qualities? The results are going to be interesting.

 

Cor, that's great stuff Trunky

Look forward to hearing more.

 

Had an email back from the Suffolk Traditional Orchard Group about the various sample fruit taken last week. This chap really knows his stuff!

Some of the apples turned out to be common varieties such as Cox's and Bramleys, albeit rather ancient specimens, but we do have some more unusual ones.

Here are some extracts from his reply:

We also have a large, very old pear tree which bears a good crop of large, hard green fruit every year:

Must make sure to try some this year, after the summer we've just had.

There is another large, ancient pear tree which this year produced an abundance of small, hard fruit which look like wild pears:

.....and we also sent some sample fruit from what we had assumed to be a Damson tree:

So, some interesting results there. If nothing else, I've learnt a lot I didn't know about tree fruit and answered a few questions too.
This is of course a very busy time of year for this group, in due course I'll be contacting them again to see if any of the older varieties are worth preserving and what action we would need to take.

 

Most Excellent Trunky

 

You have an extremely varied diet

 

Out for a stroll in a local wood today, I noticed this venerable oak had a quite well established holly tree growing in it.

I know it's not unusual to find one tree growing on another, but it was the comparative size of the holly in relation to its host which surprised me.

Interesting also, that the holly branches were spreading outwards rather than upwards, some even had a pronounced downward curve to them, before growing out away from the canopy of the oak.

 

Might be something to do with the amount of light it gets thru the Oak's canopy. If it's not sensing enough from above then it'll grow outwards.

Holly exhibits polymorphism, it takes energy to produce the spikes, so once it's grown above grazing height it doesn't need em, which is why the upper leaves are not spikey.

Be stuffed if Giraffes ever get over here though.