** The General Election Thread **

[pwa]

PS:
I ask again...............

Where do they plan to plant these millions of trees?

I don't know but I could find thousands of hectares to plant in my region, without losing any prime agricultural land. Your neck of the woods (see what I did there?) is very wooded but there are many places where fairly unproductive land is ready and waiting. Mostly used for very marginal grazing.

[Cyril Haearn]

Am I the only one here who loves conifers?

[ambodach]

Mick I thought it easier to use the name rather than the road number A83. I know the Rest and be Thankful pretty well since I cycled there from my teens and later camped often in a hidden corner which I cannot now identify. There is a nasty bit by Loch Restil where the side winds which appear out of nowhere could blow a cyclist off the road. A bus was blown off a couple of years ago. I still drive it often northbound as if the road is closed due to land slip it is a shorter return to Loch Lomond as opposed to southbound where the return is a long way and the Clyde ferries are off overnight when I often travel. I always start with a full tank of fuel.

[roubaixtuesday]

Am I the only one here who loves conifers?

I love conifers.

Just not high density monoculture of them.

[reohn2]

With global warming, warmer winters, and the rise and rise of temperature, they should plant millions of banana trees.
Would be appropriate for the post-Brexit Banana Republic Britain, and not to mention banana's being very fashionable in the Art world at present.

[Cugel]

With global warming, warmer winters, and the rise and rise of temperature, they should plant millions of banana trees.
Would be appropriate for the post-Brexit Banana Republic Britain, and not to mention banana's being very fashionable in the Art world at present.

The whole country has gone bananas and we don't need any more! There are also millions of fruit-loops. Personally I would stick one in t'other in the hope that they'd annihilate each other, with a soft and squidgy plopping sound as they made their way back to the 13th dimension from whence they sprang.

Cugel, getting tired of barmpots, crackpots and crocks of expletive-deleted.

[Spinners]

Am I the only one here who loves conifers?

I love conifers.

Just not high density monoculture of them.

Fir enough

[reohn2]

Am I the only one here who loves conifers?

I love conifers.

Just not high density monoculture of them.

Fir enough

Leaf it out,yer barking up the wrong tree.

[francovendee]

Never short of a good fire though Mick F

Warning thread drift.

It's much more though.

There is great changing beauty in trees.
They provide a breaking of wind (refrain from comment please!).
And a purifier of the atmosphere and carbon sink.

Woodland is habitat for a whole myriad of lifeforms and plants.
It is soil improvement; both humus in the top layers and minerals from deeper down.
It is the material from which Cugel makes beautiful things.
It is handles for tools and for even whole houses.
A fair few medicines are derived from trees.
And don't forget Sweet Chestnuts.
And properly seasoned it is a carbon neutral and pretty clean source of energy. It's ain't half hot Mum!


Hedges share much of the above.
It is one difference between Britain and the European Continent. Immediately apparent either on the ground or from the air.
We have kept a lot more of our old hedges.
Partly though the big shelter advantage in a windy climate, I think.

Not true of rural France, hedges galore and lots of woodlands which do get fell and replanted.
The wide variety of wildlife is witness to this, far more than I've come across in the UK.
The pressure on land here is far less, so more areas are just left, this really suits all sorts of creatures, man included.

[al_yrpal]

Too true Franco, Britain is vastly overpopulated, we need emigration, not migration.. Loved watching the wild boar in the early morning at our pals place near Auch. Pity the French blast away at birds though.

Al

[roubaixtuesday]

To true Franco, Britain is vastly overpopulated, we need emigration, not migration.. Loved watching the wild boar in the early morning at our pals place near Auch. Pity the French blast away at birds though.

Al

You volunteering?

[PDQ Mobile]

Not true of rural France, hedges galore and lots of woodlands which do get fell and replanted.
The wide variety of wildlife is witness to this, far more than I've come across in the UK.
The pressure on land here is far less, so more areas are just left, this really suits all sorts of creatures, man included.

There may be areas of France that I have never travelled through where hedges are more apparent, of course. I have only travelled through the Dordogne once for example and it was at night! I am not very well travelled in the South of France at all although I have been to some of it.


Yet if one crosses the Channel the paucity of hedgerows is immediately apparent.
I wondered for years why i knew I was in France!
What was the salient difference in the (house free) landscapes on either side of the geographically and geologically similar regions?
And the difference is, IMHO, for a great part (maintained!?) hedges or lack of them

There used to be more on mainlsnd Europe, I am told, even down into the Alpine regions but were extensively grubbed out.

England has maintained more hedges and smaller enclosures, though obviously many thousands(?) of miles are lost compared to formally.
As I stated in my post even Northern England is quite distinctive from the air for it's smaller hedge-rowed enclosures compared to ANY part of France I have flow over.

I agree however that France retains a quality of "wide openess" not present in England.
It is after all a good deal larger and has a deal more agricultural land with a similar population.

There are far more extensive tracts of woodland and many small copses.
Bird life and animal life is surprisingly abundant at times. And fish seem to thrive in the often rather "washing powder smelly" rivers.

But I still think England has this "hedged" quality of landscape that the France I know (now) lacks.

There are areas of England where one travels mile after mile after mile on roads bounded by dense hedges.
That is hardly ever the case in the rural France I am familiar with- broadly the NE.

[Mick F]

We have Cornish hedges.
6ft wide at the bottom, 3ft wide at the top, and 6ft tall. Standard design, but it varies of course.
Built of loose stones and soil and let to go natural over the years with grass, weeds, trees etc.

[al_yrpal]

We have Cornish hedges.
6ft wide at the bottom, 3ft wide at the top, and 6ft tall. Standard design, but it varies of course.
Built of loose stones and soil and let to go natural over the years with grass, weeds, trees etc.

View blockers, one of the worst aspects of West country roads.

Al

[pete75]

Hedges share much of the above.
It is one difference between Britain and the European Continent. Immediately apparent either on the ground or from the air.
We have kept a lot more of our old hedges.
Partly though the big shelter advantage in a windy climate, I think.

Hedges are relatively recent in much of rural Britain. They came in with enclosure mostly in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Many preferred the open, pre enclosure landscape. Here's John Clare comparing the landscape of enclosure with that of his boyhood.

Unbounded freedom ruled the wandering scene
Nor fence of ownership crept in between
To hide the prospect of the following eye
Its only bondage was the circling sky
One mighty flat undwarfed by bush and tree
Spread its faint shadow of immensity
And lost itself, which seemed to eke its bounds
In the blue mist the horizon’s edge surrounds
Now this sweet vision of my boyish hours
Free as spring clouds and wild as summer flowers
Is faded all — a hope that blossomed free,
And hath been once, no more shall be