Tree Following September 2019

It’s tree following time again!

Before we get to Oliver the Oak tree, here’s a couple of holiday photos of a relative of his we went to visit up in the Lake District.

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As you can see, he’s a most hospitable chap; accommodating numerous ferns, rowan and beech saplings, along with a small pine tree. Needless to say, good fun was had by all.

Back to the here and now, Oliver looks like this:

If you look right in the middle of the photo below, you can see some of this years growth: light green and growing straight up. Those shoots are roughly a foot and a half long by my reckoning.

Looking more closely at the lower branches, you can see that Oliver is ready for next year, with the buds for next spring already formed.

The tips of the shoots seem to be suffering a bit though:

As well as a spot of mildew, Oliver is currently host to the Oak knopper gall wasp (thanks Noelle for the correction!), and no I’m not just being rude about the gall wasp. The wasp lays it’s eggs in the developing acorns of oak trees, and as the acorns grow, they turn out a little like this:

The next generation of the wasp lives on the non-native Turkey oak. The Oak knopper gall wasp became established here in the 70s. I could be wrong, but the wasp may have become widespread at this point because by then the Turkey oak was widely distributed enough throughout the country to sustain the gall wasp population.

Well that’s all for this month, do click on the tree following picture at the top of the post to find more tree following posts. See you next time!