Silver Birch Trees

I have always thought there was something a bit magic about these fairy tale, delicate, silver-barked trees, with their wonderful showers of golden leaves in the Autumn. As a child in Aberdeenshire it was under a Weeping Birch that I chose to bury "treasure" (a few coloured glass beads!) and there I found the many groves of ancient, lichen-covered trees mysterious...

Lately, I have been constantly coming across them and finding myself totally obsessed with the patterns and textures of their bark- so here are some of them:

The first five images are of a tree in Valentines Park in Ilford- one that I have both painted and photographed, fascinated by the stripes of different colours and textures...






Recently, a kind friend took me to Hidcote, a National Trust property with extensive gardens in the Cotswolds. It is made up of many individual "rooms", gardens with different themes. There were countless interesting trees and flowers but I was particularly enchanted with some of the Birches, their barks often reminiscent of mouth-watering silks:









These last four images are all of a tree in Jephson Gardens in Leamington Spa, which run alongside the River Leam, after which the town is named. I went quite mad over this tree's patterns, taking endless photos- here are a few of them: