Thursday, April 21, 2011

Room to Grow

Unless they're deliberately cultivated in an arboretum, most trees never get the chance to spread their limbs and assume their natural shape throughout their life - all too often they're confined to hedges and hacked about during hedge trimming or struggle to compete for light and space in a woodland. But this ancient wild cherry has been given room to grow. For some unknown reason it was planted (or maybe accidentally sown by a bird) in the centre of a field near Harperley in County Durham. Here it is in in magnificnet isolation, in the snow-covered landscape last winter........


........ and here it is today, photographed from exactly the same spot, covered in blossom and with a few sheep enjoying its shade on an unusually hot April day.

4 comments:

  1. Exceptional photographs for this beautiful tree. Many thanks!

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  2. It is a beautiful tree. Humans do interfere with trees. I saw some amazing living root bridges built by the Khasi people of India's northeast recently.

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  3. Thanks Roger, I'll have to go back in autumn too - the tree will have very fine autumn colours

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  4. I had a look at the amazing photo of the roots on your blog, lotusleaf - quite extraordinary!

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