Why I Oughta...

In the Winters since we moved in (and after we planted our Saucer Magnolia tree in our front yard), I've looked at the buds as they are set to burst ahead of Spring.  It started in our first Winter with this post in February of 2018 .  In January of 2019, I posted a series of photos with all of the different front yard tree buds.  And last Winter (January), I decided to wire-up one of the trunks (this is a multi-trunk tree) and posted about that decision and included photos of the buds .  With all of the DEEP snow in our yard, I haven't been able to get close enough to this tree to catch some photos.  But, now, with the temperatures rising and the snow melting, I wandered out to check in on the tree.  And, the fuzzy buds are big and bulbous.  And about the burst.  This tree has, seemingly, grown in height.  Being planted in 2017, it navigated that initial transplant stress.  Then, entering the second and third year of the cycle , I'm th...

The leaves have come off of our Oak trees.  The large ones have just a few clinging on, but this tiny one that I planted this year is naked.  This was planted back in May of 2020 and seemed to do just fine back in this location.   The larger trees looked like this all the way into December - thanks to foliar marcescence.  That now has me thinking that I should get a post up in the [garden diary] showing the leaves being off the Oaks by late November this year.  But, back to this small Northern Red Oak tree - and the buds in has set in particular.  Like the other trees in this [tree buds] series, these ones are unique ( thanks Rutherford Platt !) and have some unique characteristics.  First, the color - is what I'd call caramel.  Reminds me of the newish high-end vehicle interiors that you are seeing.  Kind of like a brand new, unused football.  They're also pointy.  In the image below, you can see how there are three of them ...

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 ...

This is the second year in a row that I've posted a photo of these beautiful multi-color buds on our Greenspire Linden trees that have been espalier'd in our backyard.  Here's last year's post showing the same buds .   I think that these are my *favorite* buds on trees that we have.  Each of them are a little different - the Hornbeams are neat, too - but I think these are the largest, most colorful ones that really just SCREAM Spring to me.  Last year, I made the call to think about changing t his set of espalier to candelabra shape , but this Spring, I'm thinking that I'm going to go back to just a formal cordon and remove the tips that bend up.  Once I get around to wiring and pruning this Spring, I'll post some additional photos. 

A couple of days ago, I posted a couple of photos of our Flowering Japanese Kwanzan Cherry Tree that had suffered a little bit of winter damage here on the blog.  Today, I'm documenting a few of our front yard trees and their buds (or lack thereof).  I wanted to capture a few of the trees and how their buds were coming along in the heart of Winter.  If you're looking for a layout of our front yard trees that is a companion of this post, you can view it here on this 'tree dreaming' post from a week ago. First up, is our small Bald Cypress.  Last I covered it here on the blog was back at the end of August of this Summer (2019) when it was showing nicely with green, lacy needles.  Today, you can see it (below) clinging to a lot of brown/orange needles on the trees small frame.   Here (below) is a closer look at one of the branches that have some thorn-like (but not thorns!) raised bark, but not what I'd consider normal 'buds'.  However,...