DOWN TO EARTH in The City

Following the alarming cut back of an ancient Yew tree in March 2015, I'm please to report that two years of healthy looking regrowth to this ancient specimen, reported by specialists to be around 850 years old, provides great hope and blessed relief that the tree has not only survived the ordeal but should continue to thrive and live on for many more centuries. Two years of regrowth Looking healthy in parts Hopefully the tree will thrive and produce further healthy growth for many decades and maybe centuries The ancient bole shows character and charisma, and proves to be photogenic from any angle.  It has been lopped on many occasions over the decades and not always sympathetically, but for the first time in its history it is now protected with a 'tree preservation order'. A 'trysting' tree for lovers was Richard Cadbury's account in the late nineteenth century, and although it probably goes unnoticed by many passing by today it is ...

What are Nature Improvement Areas?  The Wildlife Trust for Birmingham and the Black Country say- NIAs are designed to revitalise urban and rural areas by creating bigger, inter-connected networks of wildlife habitats to re-establish wildlife populations and help achieve nature’s recovery. NIAs will improve the health of the natural environment to support food production, reduce flood risk and increase access to nature. NIAs encompass areas of land that include natural features and wildlife habitats but also include roads, housing developments and other man-made elements. They are areas that have been identified for their opportunities to restore nature at a landscape-scale alongside other land-uses. NIAs should enhance existing ecological networks by: • Improving the management of existing wildlife sites • Increasing the size of existing wildlife sites • Increasing the number of wildlife sites • Improving connectivity between sites • Creating wildlife cor...

Hill Top, at the western edge of Birmingham, bordering the Sandwell Valley Country Park. An intriguing and ancient broad green lane runs SE to NW, passing the old farmsteads of 'Hill Top' and 'The Uplands'. The track is hollowed, hence holloway Hill Top today (top) 1890 (below) The holloway looks like an ancient green road running south-east to north-west, and many of the field lines either side are the same today as in 1890. The old farmsteads of 'The Uplands' and 'Hill Top' can be located, with clusters of trees emanating from the hedge line From the 1890's map below it looks as if The Uplands is a landscaped estate with an avenue of trees laid out to the north of the house. A much larger building than nearby Hill Top Farm and complete with stables and other out buildings. Hill top Farm from the 1950's Hill Top Nature Reserve     A wonderful and essentially green expanse of unwritten and untold history, c...

Article from The Ecologist "It is a mysterious truth - and one the experts struggle to explain - that Britain has fewer woods than just about any other European country and yet  it has vastly more ancient trees."  http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/commentators/2989286/tree_reasons_why_ancient_oaks_survived_the_felling_of_ancient_forests_in_britain.html

Interpretation: I recently picked up the notion from a colleague that if hazel was the tree of the 'common people', oak could be thought of as a tree of the land owning upper class; I think she said the "filthy rich", but land ownership seems to be the key precis here; I'd not thought of trees in class related  terms  before, but a most valid point to consider. In times when timber was at the heart of all life in Britain every twig of a tree would have served purpose; although 'small wood' from managed coppice woodland was possibly of equal or greater value than large timber trees.  I've heard of a character, once operating in Uffmoor Wood, Halesowen, named 'Line prop Joe', who made line props and sold them to the people of Halesowen and Cradley in the 1940's and 50's. The wood was closed to the public recently by its current owner the Woodland Trust because of anti social behaviour, involving sex, dogs and drugs, it's almost ro...

Birmingham is regarded as a surprisingly green city, so much so that it boasts the title as Britain's only Biophillic city. This Guardian article explains why - https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/apr/03/birmingham-san-francisco-oslo-global-green-biophilic-cities-club The City and its suburbs, especially to the south and west, seems to emerge from the canopy, or maybe, yet somewhat romantically, sinking into the inevitable reclaiming of nature. For sure the trees are often spoken of in terms of nuisance and liability, but also protected vigourously and energetically, with thousands planted every year by organisations such as Trees For Cities, Trees For Life, Forest Schools Birmingham and virtually all the Parks' Friends groups. A city of trees Many street trees were planted in the 19th and early 20th Century and as such are nearing the end of their unnatural lives. Limes, Planes and Poplars were planted along major routes in a bid to absorb the ris...

How absurd, the idea that a plant is anything other than a life giving, life preserving entity, the essence of life, without which there is no life. Richard Mabey provides a terrific account in 'A Cabaret of Plants' (BOTANY AND THE IMAGINATION) PROFILE BOOKS 2015. And whilst many of us celebrate plants  intensely and  joyously, some are preoccupied with total disdain towards certain species; the 'Triffid syndrome' might be applied here as a concept approaching an 'irrational fear leading to a concern that certain plants will, if left to their own devises, consume human babies'. A few local 'triffids' are evident at this time of year, notably Japanese Knotweed, Himalayan Balsam and the most recent traveller, Giant Hogweed. Side by side, Rea Valley Hogweed at Ten Acres (foreground left) and the giant cousin (middle ground and left) Photo 8th June. Our friendly hog, Heracleum sphondylium , seems to be an accepted plant at the edge of river, woo...

A park of many corners Highbury Park features somewhat disproportionatley in the 'Rea Valley Woodland Consultation' Blog, two reasons, one it's close to home and work and two it's interesting, that might be three, but nevertheless it's a fascinating area with lots going on almost everyday, and there are enough landscape features combined with a geographical declivity to make it seem much larger than it is; a park of many 'corners', thanks to Milner's 19th century landscape design and this, together with a mixed arrangement of Park's management additions, changes, abandonment, cut backs and nature improvement, thanks to volunteers, Friends, Rangers and the B&BCWT NIA funding, makes it an intriguing subject. http://www.bbcwildlife.org.uk/NIA Author and journalist Barbara Copperthwaite also has much to say about the area in her blog - https://www.gobewild.co.uk/wild-blog  Great photos accompanying. Every now and again, I dawdle the time ...