The English Oak Project @thekentacorn.bsky.social

Our Oak Trees & their Sweet Chestnut chums in our ancient bluebell woodland in the Weald of Kent. Also pictures and facts about trees

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One of the most beautiful trees in
Europe is the 550 year old Arbour Oak in Wollaton Park, Nottingham

My youngest son is at university in the City, and took this photo 30mins ago
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Five years ago returning home from our woodland with an empty container I had used to hold the English Bluebell seeds we were manually sowing, I noticed there were four seeds still in it

I tucked them in to our home garden soil and waited for Nature to do its thing

It has 🤗
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Our woodland faces fields, with ground rising to meet them, & our border is a ditch & bank

Because of the above we have a lot of Bank & Field Voles & Wood Mice

Because of the above we have a lot of owls, hawks & kestrels

Sitting still on the bank can be quite entertaining
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One of my wife’s garden ferns
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A fine and subtle spirit dwells
In every little flower,
Each one its own sweet feeling breathes
With more or less of power.
There is a silent eloquence
In every wild bluebell
That fills my softened heart with bliss
That words could never tell.

Anne Brontë
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Our oaks have woken up 🤗🌳
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If you are looking at a sea of white bluebells, they are Spanish hybrids, & not pure 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🫡
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The natural grace of an English Bluebell can only be enhanced by the rare occasion they are missing their violet-blue pigment

About 1 in 10,000 is an albino, which means we have about 500,000 bluebells, as we normally get about 50 albino’s
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And so it begins 🤗

Over the next few weeks our woodland will be covered in English Bluebells

About 30% have flowered so far
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Cherry Plum have flowered, Blackthorn are flowering, & Hawthorn are getting ready to flower, as per the photo

All three flowers are very similar and they flower in this order and in these time periods: February/March, March/April and May. Hawthorn being the Mayflower
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Now that’s just showing off 🤨
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A random ‘are’ is so annoying 🤨
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Some young ferns, or fiddleheads as our US cousins are call them, are edible. Not these 🤢
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Wood Ferns grow directly from deadwood, the rootstock forming a crown, with a vase-like ring of fronds

We have a lot of Wood Ferns, as deadwood is not dead, and every tree stays in our woodland, even after they fall asleep
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These two are about ten years old
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English Bluebell stems grow straight up until the weight of the flowers create the droop towards the tip

Here are two showing how the flowers individually separate from each other as the stem extends

The number of flowers increase with maturity as the root system expands
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Horse Chestnut dance their way into Spring
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Is a sunset the end or the beginning?
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Mute swans aren’t actually mute, as the Alsatian dog found out last May when it got too close to the nest

My friend momentarily sought my help before opening his own gates of hell as only angry swans can
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Words aren’t needed when you have a close bond
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I spent a year of walks in close proximity to him. He grew to trust me while he waited alone for a mate. Last year his dream came true, & he brought his young to see me. Today he came to say hello while his partner builds the nest
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The happiest male mute swan
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So much love in our woodland right now
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🫠🎼
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Pteridium aquilinum - The former means ‘little wing’ and the latter ‘eagle’

Eagle Fern is so much better than Bracken, because when mature, the large outstretched fronds resemble an eagle's wingspan
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Cherry Plum, Blackthorn & Hawthorn flowers are all very similar & they flower in this order, & in February/March, March/April & May (Hawthorn being the Mayflower)

Therefore the predominant flowers you see currently are Blackthorn, with the flowers appearing before the leaves
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The pleasures of spring are available to everybody and cost nothing

George Orwell
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HOLD ON TO YOUR HATS, THE OAKS ARE AWAKE 🥳🌳🌳
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El Joven - A Sessile Oak in the woods of Bustillo del Monte, Cantabria, Spain

Photo: Alberto C F
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Oak leaf buds don’t just open,they dance
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Morning stretch
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