The Fall in LA

All my life having been subjected to the miraculous, dramatic shocks of the changing seasons in the UK, I will always feel rather cheated in Southern California, where the changes are more subtle. Because of this, I get extra excited when finding evidence of Autumn- or I should say "the Fall"- in LA where the majority of trees are evergreens.

As I have said before, as an artist my prime interest in trees is visual. Although my knowledge of the indigenous British trees is quite extensive, it is very limited regarding trees from other countries, including those in the US. In the last few days I have twice been made very aware of this, and embarrassed myself.

The first instance: Nearby, there is a wonderful avenue of one of the few local trees that are now glowing red and yellow and orange. I vaguely decided they were some variety of Maples- partly because of their colours and partly because of the palmate shape of the leaves:









Before writing this post I looked more closely at them, and soon realized that there were no signs of the Acer family winged seed pods. Instead there were these spiky, round fruits that I think of as "pom-poms", similar to those on the London Plane trees, and the leaves were slightly different from all the Maples.


A bit of research led me to the American Sweetgum tree- Liqidambar styraciflua.

My second instance of mistaken identity was in a street connected to that of the Sweetgums, down which I regularly walk when taking my Granddaughter Violet to a nearby playground. There I was constantly enjoying some magnificent tall golden trees, especially when lit by sunlight. Again, I was not that concerned about what they were, as it was their colour rather than their structure that caught my attention. I thought they were possibly some sort of Sycamores (though not the London Plane tree).








Having decided to include them in this post I became a bit more observant: checking out the leaves on the ground, I recognized the distinctive shape of a tree I had fallen in love with in the Botanical Gardens of Bath. This was the Tulip tree, Liriodendron tulipifera, also known as the Yellow Poplar tree, although it is a member of the Magnolia family. What puzzled me at first was that on the LA trees I had never noticed the wondrous flowers they have, and which I had delighted in photographing on the Bath tree- but then I remembered that last Spring I left the country in March, before they would have blossomed.

These are the LA leaves:



And this is one of the Bath ones:


And here is the evidence I zoomed in on of the seed clusters on the LA tree:


Finally, two photos of the Tulip tree flowers in Bath. I just can't wait to see the LA trees covered with these magical flowers next year!

Sunsets in Kelston

Kelston is a tiny village near Bath, by the River Avon. There is nothing much there apart from the village pub, an organic farm and a scattering of houses. It is totally- and delightfully- rural.

I recently stayed there with a friend and revelled in the very unspoilt land. Although not Samuel Palmer country, going for an evening walk when there was that miraculous reflected sunset glow on the landscape I was reminded of his paintings. Here is Kelston Hill:



And here is another very English scene, including English Oaks!


From up on Kelston Hill there are wonderful views of the surrounding landscape. I found the undulating curves of these fields fascinating:




On another evening, taking the two charming whippets for a walk, we were suddenly aware of a blast of colour- this was no gentle evening glow:



And here one was reminded of Rothko rather than Samuel Palmer:




Trees silhouetted against a sunset are, to me, always nostalgic:






And I will conclude with two quiet images, showing the last remnants of the sunset:

April in Bath

I am giving the City of Bath it's own April post because when I was there for Easter I was knocked out by the outstanding statuesque trees in Henrietta Park. The 7 acre park was originally laid out to celebrate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897 and is tucked away near the City centre.

You are first confronted with an overwhelming avenue of enormous Horse Chestnut trees, so here are some of them:





I loved the sculptural symmetry of this Cherry tree:



But this extraordinary sculpture of a tree is my very favourite. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you what kind of tree it is- the leaves are similar to those of an Ash....does anyone recognize it?




This next tree is a Dawn Redwood (thanks Georgia!), a native of Central China:




Here is another characterful Plane tree- what wonderful, monster-like trees they are:



Now this Beech tree really puzzled me: it seemed to be a Hybrid- half Copper Beech and half regular, green leaved Beech!




I am showing this Silver Birch because I was fascinated by the very graphical bark:


Now I am leaving Henrietta Park to conclude with two photos of one of my Conker babies in the garden of my brother's house in Bath. To read the history of my Conkers, click here.