Why I Oughta...

Yesterday, I posted a terminal bud of our small Harry Lauder Walkingstick tree and talked about how Rutherford Platt was fascinated by tree buds and said they were as varied as jewels.  The next up in my [Winter tree buds] series is a revisit to where I started (last year) with the London Planetree that I planted in 2020.  Here's last year's post showing the buds .  Below, you can see some other looks at the buds including terminal and lateral buds.  They're pointy and red.  And look good for this time of year, don't they? This tree has been (somewhat) temperamental.  It reacts poorly if it is neglected in any way, but then responds really well when water is given to it in any way.  You could say that it is both needy and resilient.  It is planted in the back of the yard and is in a gap in between the scrub shrub and the largest tree we have - the hackberry tree that is covered in galls every Summer .   It will provide a lot of shade for future families, but for us?  I

We had a storm come through last week that dropped all the remaining leaves - and I mean ALL - in the yard.  With the leaves off the limbs, I've started to investigate the structure of some of the trees and noticing that most of them have set buds before they head into dormancy.  The first tree that I looked at was our new (this year) London Plane Tree.  The brief history of the tree is that I bought this with some birthday money from Nat's Grampy in early Spring , planted in May and it was immediately stressed , it seemed to recover and full leaf out this Summer, only to return to a stressed-state during the late Summer heat .   Below is a look at one of the limbs of this tree that shows off what are quite pointy buds: The London Planetree buds you see above are almost thorn-like at this point, but based on what I see online, they'll continue to grow out and get a little bit 'bent' in the appearance of their tips .    It also says that the Plane Tree (or Maple-leaf