Tree Following – July 2021

Well I think it’s about time we popped down to Rookery Park for another Tree Following. The Avenue of Lime Trees is in full summer flow now; leaves deep green, flowers out. As usual, I headed out early to take advantage of the park while it was quiet. The sun was shining brightly, lighting the park to it’s best advantage.

The Sunken Garden

I’ll start with a photo of the Sunken Garden which sits in front of Rookery House (after which the park is named). I walk through this on my habitual route to the Avenue: it’s the part of the park which is the best maintained, twice yearly trimmed up and bedded out. Old pictures of the house show a slightly more elaborate garden, but the basic structure remains the same. The house has recently been converted into flats (which is an improvement on being derelict) and some houses built on the wasteland behind it. I was pleased to note that the new road into the housing estate is called Wilberforce Way, reflecting Rookery House’s links with William Wilberforce and the anti-slavery movement.

The Avenue

Here’s our Avenue of Limes in all it’s finery. Looking at the picture now, it has just occurred to me that there’s a tree missing: after the first tree on the right, there’s a gap. It’s certainly not a recent occurrence.

Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, the leaves have taken on their summer hue:

Flowers

As you can see in the picture above, the trees are mightily bedecked with pale green flowers. In fact, most of the colour comes from the leafy bract which sits above the flower itself.

The flowers are held in little bunches and are pollinated by bees. Large trees often seem to be wind pollinated, so it seems unusual for such massive beings to bee so inclined (pun intended).

Appendices

It wouldn’t be right to finish without admiring another face. I was planning to feature a different face which sits across the path, one that looked like it was saying “Who ate my sandwich?”. I was then planning to show this one next month, as it seems to say “Hee hee hee, ’twas me who ate it!”. My plans were thwarted as the sun was shining so brightly into the camera on the other side of the path, I could only muster a silhouette. The one shown above is a great face all the same; one of my favourites. He definitely looks the sort to steal sandwiches. I think that’s why he’s lurking by the playground: unsuspecting picnic-ers aplenty. You can still make out a bit of red in the eyes which has mostly faded on the other faces.

In other news: Lime trees are notorious for weeping sticky sap all over anything left underneath them. In fact, it is the honeydew of thousands of aphids, not sap, which rains down upon the unwitting cars parked beneath. I found a number of ladybird larvae having a good old munch while I was looking at the flowers:

That brings us to the end of this month’s Tree Following. You can, as usual, find more such posts over at SquirrelBasket. Do take a look:

Thanks for popping by, see you next time!