Lopping a tree or two

old cypress up top

Our friends from two fields away came with chain saws and anti-midge spray yesterday and chopped into logs most of the collapsed part of the old cypress up at the top of the garden, the one that was smothering everything in its vicinity. In the first photo above, beyond the wood pile, you can see the main trunk of the birch tree. Before the collapse of the cypress that was completely hidden, even on its further away side. The collapse of half the cypress pulled its still standing trunks more upright and away from the birch. We left some of the cut trunks as a counterweight. Whether it'll be sufficient, time will tell. Meanwhile, the root rot at the base of the cypress blooms on. (Can one talk of blooming fungi?)

We used the broken old step-ladder that was leaning against the old rowan (scorched trunk at left of first photo) when we moved here, plus another random metal pole that we found, to prop up the wood pile. One day I'll do a post about Boggy Brae garden metal finds!

Old rowan, with its new bit, decorated with a beard
of cypress roots. Like rhododendron ponticum, this
cypress sent roots down from ground-touching branches.

The lopping opened up the view a bit

While the chain saw was out, BJ-of-2-fields-away (definitely not BoJo!) lopped some of the overgrown sallow that's up top as well and some of the top heavy and leaning towards the house prunus tree on the front bank. I've a bit of tidying up to do and a few roaring bonfires of green, terpene-rich smaller cypress branches to enjoy.

Sallow, left, to be added to the as yet not very dead dead-hedge that can be seen top left of the photo and, below, some branches of the overgrown front bank prunus tree to be tidied up.

There is a lovely fresh piney smell up here!

The original deal was that our friends would take half the wood but since we made that deal they've found another source of free wood (free but for the work, I mean) nearer to them so they didn't need it this year. When they do need some more wood they can come and hack away at the fallen wild cherry. The upper of the two cherry trunks shown below is still alive but the lower one is, as one might say in yoof speak, well dead. And there is a lot of dead wood above it too, still propped up for the best drying effect by the old cherry tree's offspring.

dead cherry wood

Alligator teeth and hares' feet

On my jobs list today was tighten alligator teeth and oil its jaws. This alligator:

Then I made some more sawdust cutting these lengths of old rhododendron branches

and swept the sawdust onto this bit

to encourage more Hare's-foot Inkcaps to appear there. I hadn't seen any of the actual hare's-foot stage yet, but I did today. However, that comes later in the story.

When I'd angled them against a rock and stamped on the thinner branches to break them and had chopped the thicker ones that stamping didn't work on, I stood on the eucalyptus bench to view the spider webs in the still uncut bit of lawn. From there I began an anticlockwise circumnavigation of the upper garden just observing what is new and how things are and what I need to do next.

Behind the shrub and fern in the top right corner of that pic is a new patch of yarrow flowering away between yet more branches of rhododendron and buddleia that I haven't got round to yet. There's a lot of yarrow leaf all over the upper lawn but it hasn't flowered before so I'm going to leave this pile until after the flowers have set seed.

Up from the yarrow was a new crop of small toadstools. I shal go and collect one or two to have a closer look at later.

Across the top and under the falling down cypress tree there is an outcrop of what I think is the same fungus that was growing around the trunks of what I call the halfway trees–a clump of wild cherry, rowan, holly and flowering currant plus, recently, a self-seeded downy birch. I should say another self-seeded downy birch; there are dozens; I just have to decide which, if any, to let grow.

Still haven't managed to identify this species of fungus (nor several others, come to that!)

Down a step or two from that recumbent branch is the old rowan beset with what looks like the Root Rot fungus (the cypress has it too, which is probably why it's falling over).

Glistening Inkcaps have started to reappear on the rowan as well. The trunk was half covered with these last year.

Down a little from the old rowan is a flowering currant bush. I stuck a pruned branch of it in the ground eight years ago and it is now at least two metres tall with a similar diameter. It has a lot of fruit this year. Bird food.

Now comes the surprise! Down again from the flowering currant is an old compost heap which I'm leaving alone because five little plants have appeared. Last year there were dahlias. Could this be them again?

Also on that compost heap, the biggest Hare's-foot Inkcap yet! The pink bits are Himalayan Balsam flowers falling over the fence from the field. My circumnavigations also have the purpose of hoiking out HBs that are growing within the garden. The bees can have the ones in the field.

And, after I gently pushed away that bit of grass at the bottom of the inkcap stem, a little "hare's-foot" appeared.

Grintastic! Below you can see the furriness inside the 'cup' of the curled open inkcap.

Making my way back across to the shed, I enjoyed this seed head of Common Cat's-ear,

the only remaining African daisy

and a tiny fungus of which we get quite a few but whose name I still know not! For scale, that is a Self-heal seedhead behind it. It has a delicacy similar to the Hare's-foot but on a smaller scale.

By which time I had wet feet and soggy socks. Should 'a worn me wellies.

Icy wood

Ice rings and tree rings

Ice bubbles

Ice bubbles and cracks

Ice cracks and bubbles

Ice patterns

He said they were splitting themselves! That easy ;-)