TreeSquare: trunk calls!

You are rubbish, stay home!

For Becky’s TreeSquare challenge today I am concentrating on trunks, mostly with a message: sometimes not a very friendly one, as seen above on a walk just after last year’s first lockdown, and sometimes more positive such as the tree below by the canal at Claypits.My beloved Suffrage Oak on the Kelvin Way often sports ribbons in the Suffragette colours. It wore the broad band in 2018 for the centenary of the first UK women to get the vote; the narrow ribbons are more recent.

Finally, I love these trunk / fence hybrids, both alongside the River Kelvin within walking distance of my home. I wonder how long the second one will last before it finally rots away?

38 Comments »

  1. Hi Anabel – appropriate message though, but yes – the second is better. Fun to see the tree trunks … especially the one growing round the fence. Love the Suffragette Ribbons … cheers Hilary

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  2. Like you, I thought the second sign was much nicer! And I’ve never seen a tree trunk grow around a fence before! I’ve seen people build porches around them, but that’s the structure adapting to the tree, not the other way around. Cool pics!

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  3. When I saw the post title I immediately thought of elephants, then thought about telephone calls as I trained as a telephonist at the local telephone exchange when I left school. The first message is blunt but sometimes they have to be – I hope it works.

    To be honest I have mixed feelings about people leaving rubbish, especially in the countryside. It’s not nice, it’s an eyesore and could be a danger to some wildlife, and it really annoys me when I see it, but what also annoys me is the lack of bins to put stuff in – in many rural areas around here, especially popular ones, I can walk for miles and never see a bin.

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  4. The tree messages are right…both of them. I wish more people wouldn’t throw out their trash. Positive messages are always needed even when covid is not around. I love how trees can grow right in fences. They are so resilient

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  5. Trees are so good at telling us things, you can almost imagine them writing the messages! Lovely post – and so impressed at the number of TreeSquares you have prepared 🙂

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  6. The first message is pretty blunt but probably necessary. In national parks here there are no bins and everyone is expected to take their rubbish out with them. It works too – there’s nothing left behind.

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  7. Those are good ones. I have noticed nearly every local wood has its own covid 19 decorations/toys/dangling things/ ‘fairy garden’ hanging on every tree but after a year out in the weather they now have more of a faded ‘witchy’ feel about them that I prefer. From bright Covid rainbows and lurid toys left everywhere outdoors to a softer eventual disintegration. Maybe in five or ten years time they will no longer be visible at all…dolls in the dust of history…. like the virus that inspired them.

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    • Yes, I notice fewer and fewer pieces of covid art outside and in windows. My favourite window bear is still sending out daily messages though, most recently “anybody know what we are supposed to be doing?” which sums things up pretty well.

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  8. The trunk incorporated into the tree is very interesting. Have you ever seen the bicycle tree in Brig o’ Turk, near Aberfoyle and Callendar? A bicycle was propped up against the tree many years ago and the tree grew round it. Unfortunately I don’t have a decent photo of it to use for the challenge.

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  9. I love the positive message on the second tree, so essential to think like this in our present state. I’ve got a similar one on a post in the garden bought for me by a friend recently, it cheers me up when I look at it.

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  10. I take it you are referring to the Forth & Clyde Canal. There used to be a section of the canal at Port Dundas -= next to the Distillery, I know the distillery is gone but what happened to the canal?

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    • The canal still goes to Port Dundas, it’s not far beyond Claypits. The warehouses there are now flats and the former Pinkston Power Station is a water sports centre. The Whisky Bond houses the Glasgow Sculpture Studios, the National Theatre of Scotland has its HQ nearby and Applecross and Claypits are all being done up. See this old post for some of it:

      A Glasgow canal walk

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