Your favourite tree?

[Cugel]

Cugel is an amateur in the best sense of the word, Plus One
How did you get into woodcraft, did you 'teach yourself', how long did it take?

Plus Two for handcrafts and tradition

I was frustrated by a desk job in which nothing ever seemed to get finished. I was also envious of pals in the various trades who, when we went about on bikes during club runs, would point and say, "I made that".

Then Daughter Numero Uno wanted a bookcase for her collection of uni books, after she graduated. She was going to spend all her dosh on some rubbishy MDF thing so I told her I could make a much better one. This was the start.

My first pieces were not so good - functional with proper joints but ugly. I subscribed to a Yank woodworking magazine (Fine Woodworking) and bought loadsa books on woodworking. I practiced in the shed with hands and brainbox illuminated by the mag & book edjakashun. I listened to a hoary old Yank woodworker's advice that, "Anyone can make a great piece after practicing properly on just two not-great ones". He was right.

Addiction took over and I had to prised from the shed at 10pm each night.......... But practice makes perfect. Well - competent.

Cugel

[hujev]

I am partial to birches. Here's some that I see on my land near the shore of Lake Superior when I look up from the light of a campfire (or gas lantern):


(also note Andromeda there - best ever sky views at that spot!)

I am so partial to them that I have a whole photo series on them, and some research, here:
http://rjl.us/photo/birch1.htm (a lot of these I also printed in variious media like b/w darkroom [analog] photographs, van dyke browns and cyanotype, and inkjet (don't say 'Giclée' because that's a fake word made up to sound expensive!).

I also like Jack pine (Pinus banksiana) and most of the other pines, Balsam fir (Abies balsamea), many of the oaks, and a bunch of others (I'm a botanist!).

I'd like to see some of the named old trees in the UK someday.

[pwa]

Wonderful photo. Birch is usually regarded as a pioneer species, quickly moving in to bare ground before other tree species can get in there. And it is a good looker.

[Tangled Metal]

Good in very damp areas too. Stands to sit in water. Seen enough birch being used to dry out an old gravel pit.

[hujev]

Yes, these birches, Betula papyrifera, are likewise early successional and forest opening trees; these in the picture are probably 40-60 years old; they grow well close to Lake Superior (here about 1km) with the added winter snow and summer fogs. I've got a favourite on my land there, with a perfect form and always a perfectly dispersed patch of fallen leaves underneath, but don't have any pictures on der Veb handy...

If you look at that photo series link the most fantastic are the ones from Alaska, where birches at the low mountains (~1000-2000 feet; B. neoalaskana and B. occidentalis mostly, with B. glandulosa as a shrub) take on fantastic variation in bark colo(u)r (from white to silver to red to chrome to almost blue), leaf shape, form, etc. I have a favo(u)rite birch area where I took a lot of the pictures... a sort of Birch Heaven on earth.

The reason I think birches are so amazing is they are so polymorphic but also their fall colo(u)rs are fantastic. Can't go wrong with birches (or other trees)!

[Cyril Haearn]

Is the vegetation in parts of Alaska untouched by man? What is the dominant tree? The Sitka Spruce is unpopular with some in the UK because of its ubiquity/success (monoculture)
..
I did read about someone who dislikes trees, she bleated about the leaves stopping light getting into her home so she had to have the lights on 24/7

[hujev]

Most of Alaska is natural - interior Alaska (most everything >50 miles from the ocean outside the southeast 'panhandle' and south of the Brooks Range/Arctic Slope) is very fire-adapted, like a lot of Siberia, and as wild (or wilder as little oil development outside the Arctic slope). Fires are common all summer, and most are left to burn naturally unless close to roads, settlements, or some cabins, resulting in a fantastic overlapping mosaic of vegetation landscapes (especially impressive from the air). Southeast Alaska is another country, with tall Sitka spruce (beautiful and natural in its natural range!), western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla), & a few others in the famous forests like the Tongass or Glacier Bay NP, where I worked a few years.

Black & white spruce (Picea mariana & P. glauca) are by far the most common interior tree (and biomass), with birch and aspen (Populus tremuliodes) in recently burned areas, and alder (Alnus) and willows in wetter areas and alpine belts (mostly). Very 'circumboreal, so except the absence of pines, similar to Finland & across Russia & Canada with the genera mostly the same and only species being different.

Not to get all botanical here, but if interested, here's an annotated bibliography I made for seasonal field botany assistants from outside Alaska to learn a little of the vegetation: http://rjl.us/nauka/botany/borealvegeta ... 201404.pdf and this page has some presentations, etc. on my past work with lotsa pix, including good ground & aerial vegetation views: http://rjl.us/nauka/

But after years in Alaska I moved back south to the center of the universe (the centre may be somewhere else!) - Lake Superior!

Here's another favorite birch photo, this one from my Alaska birch site:


Oops, sorry to hijack the thread...

/robert, crazy for plants as much as cycles...

[reohn2]

Ah! Birches,love 'em,especially in Winter and Autumn

[fausto copy]

Bring back the birch!

(Well, someone had to say it )

[peetee]

I have a soft spot for oaks and there are some truly magnificent old oaks near here in the New Forest but my favourites are yew trees. They are generally associated with Christianity but some believe their religious connection to be much older. The complexity of form can be truly astonishing with convoluted, swirling and twisting growth lines in the wood surface. They are notoriously difficult to age because the centre of the trunk can rot out completely without affecting the health of the tree. In some cases low hanging branches have rooted into the centre and a new trunk has formed inside the old.

[Tangled Metal]

Yew have to be joking! Oaks are too popular as a favourite tree. For me it's the Yew tree, Juniper or humble Hawthorn. The rowan has a good rating IMHO. Not least because of past harvesting of the berries on a walk with the resulting produce tasting so nice.

[anniesboy]

That's a nice oak bonsai, did you grow it from an acorn? How old is it? We grew some oaks from acorns when the children were young. Donated them to a local golf course when they got too big.

Here's my pride and joy, grown from a seed picked up on a ride about 5 years ago.
IMG_20190306_113415.jpg

It was given to me about three years ago,by a near neighbour,it had been growing in a old sink for twenty plus years.
After it was given to me I went on a day course at Herons Bonsai to get advice from Peter Chan regarding future care.
I am going to repot it in a few weeks time and I hope turn it about 45 degrees clockwise as I think it will look better.

[PDQ Mobile]

No one has chosen Ash as their favourite(AFAIK).
Yet it generally grows on better damper sites,
provides elastic strong timber, fine firewood, and stock love the mineral rich foliage when it falls.

The news about Ash dieback here in the West makes for some grim reading.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-47483197

[roubaixtuesday]

Re Ash/

Our house was built in the 1940s on the garden of the next door house. It was named "Ash Cottage" (though it's not a cottage, it's a bog standard semi...) after the Ash tree in the front garden.

70 years later, the tree is, of course, still there - I have no idea how old it is.

We used to have a pair of nuthatches nesting in a hole in the trunk, which brought us great joy every spring on their return. A few years ago they abandoned the hole, I don't know why, and it has now sealed up.

I would miss it greatly if it succumbs.

[bigjim]

Nice thread this.
I often read about the wonderful/stunning moorland views. But I'm not a fan as I feel they are only there because of mans destruction of ancient forests. I'd much prefer them covered in trees.
My favourite tree is the Plum tree in my back garden. It supplies me with delicious fruit and jam every year. It's picked up a fungus disease in the last couple of years but it still provides.