The Festival of the Trees 28 - Art and Arboreality

Welcome to the Festival of the Trees 28 – Art and Arboreality.

Thank you to all the contributors for so many delicious, tree-inspired creations!

Art and Arboreality is illustrated thanks to the kind permission of Canadian artist Linda Lovisa, a talented painter and forest-listener whom I discovered via Eric Keast of Broken Vulture Art. As you wander through the Festival, I invite you to take a moment to investigate each window Linda creates into the forest, and let yourself be inspired.

~~~ OF AIR ~~~

I am blessed with this really awesome friend by the name of Ann Vetter-Hansen. Like Linda Lovisa, Ann Vetter-Hansen is also the kind of artist who opens windows into beautiful places:

"Do you feel it?

The glory that is fall approaches! I can practically feel my cells vibrating with glee. I have tentatively located sources for apples, quince and blue grapes locally. (I am going to can quince applesauce that will make tears fall from the eyes of unbelievers) I am itching to eat pears and honeycrisp apples till I'm sick. The fall light is absolutely glorious. I can hardly get any work done. I just want to wander orchards and woods."

Artist Julia Kay of The Daily Portrait Project might well agree, as her enjoyment of the trees seems push her self-portrait far to the margin amid a Tangle of Trees.

Dana Driscoll is almost finished with her Tarot of Trees. The Major Arcana are complete, and she is powering through the Minor Arcana. Take your time to explore these cards – talk about a lot of windows into the world!

Salix Tree of Windywillow spots the portal of the fates in the Spider Webs Everywhere adorning the trees of her garden.

Liz Stablein shares her Trees of Mystery, lovely pines silhouetted against the sky.

Writer Jason Evans of The Clarity of Night offers a pairing of poetry and photography when he’s reminded to Whisper an Old Tune to the telephone poles.

Art helps us to see the world from a new perspective, and trees can afford the same. Writer Ash Krafton shares her tree-inspired piece Boots on a Branch to help us all remember to stay young, and try not to take life too seriously.

Tree-climbing isn’t just for the daring and agile. Julie Dunlap of Pines Above Snow gets to See the Forest From the Trees via the world of the tree canopy at Longwood Gardens thanks to the new tree house exhibit. Visit Forever Young to learn more about tree houses constructed for universal access to all.

emily* of em @ home tells us about Walking On and Listening To the Trees at Kew. The botanical gardens in West London also include a treetop walkway!

If that’s not enough tree-top fun for you, check out the 10 Astonishing Treehouses You’d Love to Live In at International Listings Luxury Real Estate. (Personally, I prefer the minimalist approach, but that doesn’t make these look tree-mansions look any less righteous.)

Wes and Steph Vander Lugt of Integral Mission show us One of the Largest Trees in the World, a glorious cypress located in Santa Maria del Tule outside Oaxaca, Mexico.

~~~ OF EARTH ~~~

Fred First of Fragments from Floyd shares the perspective of a photographer in a Tree Fallen in the Forest during a recent walk. Poignantly, Fred tells us,

“I discovered once more how difficult it is, with the single monopic lens of the camera to capture the sense of forest–of any setting where we carry a camera wanting to say “this is what it is like” and only in the end touch the edges of a place, of a time.”

Green Womyn gives us Deméter in all her harvest glory heralding the arrival of spring in the southern hemisphere, and autumn in the northern hemisphere.


Christine Swint of maría cristina poesía shares her poem Tree Bardo read aloud with images. Her reading helps us to slow down to tree-tempo and smell the dying roses. She also offers an Interview with a Hickory, for those who want to be in the know.

Dave Coulter of osage + orange tells us about Another Sort of Ground Zero as he walks down the literal memory lane of osageorange trees.


It’s not a party without a few raccoons around, so I invited Marvin’s recent Raccoon sighting from Nature in the Ozarks to remind us of who might be watching from the trees as we wander on our morning walks.

Meanwhile, back in the holler, Cady May shows us the Paw Paw Poo Poo in the local woods.

GrrlScientist of Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted) takes us on a tour while Visiting Darwin’s Home, gardens, and experiements.

Kathryn Stripling Byer of Here, Where I Am, drives us through the Trees of her world, and reflects.

You can always count on the Crafty Green Poet Juliet Wilson to ground you in the garden, just as she does for us this month with her poem Orchard, Gorgie Farm.

I haven’t had much time for poetry lately, so I took my own prescription for art and arboreality and wrote about my Love Affair with the Santa Barbara Moreton Bay Fig Tree to share with you for the Festival of the Trees here at Arboreality.

~~~ OF FIRE ~~~

Dave Bonta of Via Negativa offers us a glimpse of The Tree Eaters and other antique machinery, and then steps back to consider the bigger picture. For more lumber machinery fun, try a visit to Forks, Washington.

Marco Flavio Marinucci invokes the lightning with his art series Rootless, perhaps to help us focus on the small, unbound moments in life.

Meanwhile, A. Decker of Resonant Enigma pauses for Meditation No Method – Neti Neti. I think Decker’s on to something… let his immersion inspire you too.

Michelle Johnson of Poefusion shares her poem An Oak Tree. Thank you, Michelle, for teaching me the word “monadnock”!

Dan of Exploring the World’s Tree Species discovered fine selections of Tree Art (by trees) to inspire us.

Jarrett Walker, Creature of the Shade, is Confronting Vegetation: Araucaria muelleri. Talk about an Extreme Tree Encounter!

John Lincoln of Art-Insight shares his Crimsoned Memories among the trees. This is just one piece that is part of his enormous gallery located at Artbreak which is filled with glowing forest imagery.

Lye Tuck-Po of Anthropological Notebook gives us an Elegy for an Old Campsite in Malaysia, describing her view from both above and below the forest canopy while learning about the Batek people. She tells us,

“I envied my Batek friends’ confident ability to find their way in the forest, only to be reassured that they, too, have moments of lostness and disorientation. They have to keep their hearts focused on the route, they said, distractions are a-plenty in the forest.”

As Lye Tuck-Po learns about the Batek and their language she discovers that, “they too see and appreciate and find ineffable the possibilities of poetry in their world.”


While we are on the subject of elegies, The Star reports that Buddhist monks in Assam, India conducted a unique funeral ritual for a fallen banyan tree and the storks it took with it. Banyan trees are one of many sacred trees used to symbolize life and the connections between heaven and earth. According to this report,

"The villagers, most of them farmers, considered the banyan tree sacred and believed that the storks were their guardian angels."

~~~ OF WATER ~~~

Chris Crowley shares a spectacular Tree Dance in the Rain. She tells us,

“I've photographed [this tree] many times, and each time there is a new facet of its beauty which comes across.”

Artist Ester Wilson of Daily Drawings shares an Oregon Film Strip which provides a snapshot of the beautiful trees of this region.

Hans Vaupel gives us a glorious Reflection with Pond and Trees as an offering of autumn color.

Since I’m trading ocean for autumn this year, I was especially intrigued by Nina’s discovery of “beach trees” in the sand shared at her blog Nature Remains. Nina takes us on a tour Inside the Hoh Rain Forest, and lets her inner poet do the talking.

Colleen Redman of Loose Leaf Notes muses with her poem The Sunbather, and shares several encounters with the alien-like growth on the forest floor with Fungi Feng Shui and the Mushrooms Among Us, exercising her creative skills to provide each with a new name. (Don’t you just love the way autumn rain calls out the mushrooms?)

Speaking of alien-like growth, I'm glad I'm not the only one who was delightfully startled by the Kousa Dogwood tree. Lorianne DiSabato of Hoarded Ordinaries has a great picture and carefully describes this Enigma. (Incidentally, the first time I saw this tree was during my own trip to Longwood Gardens).

~~~ OF SPIRIT (FURTHER READING) ~~~

We conclude the Festival of the Trees 28 with a few new forks in the trail for you to continue your travels.



--- ART ---

The Apple Valley Review
Ed.: Leah Browning


If you love poetry and literature as much as I do, you’ll definitely enjoy the Fall 2008 issue of The Apple Valley Review edited by Leah Browning. The Apple Valley Review is an online literary magazine of fiction and poetry, and incidentally the Fall 2008 issue cover art features some beautiful trees in “Otter Creek,” oil on panel, 15" x 24"by Rob Evans.




--- ARBOREALITY ---


Between Earth and Sky: Our Intimate Connections to Trees
By: Nalini Nadkarni

Arboreality readers may recall our interview with Bill Gladden of the Open Space Preservation Department of Chester County, Pennsylvania. Bill reminded me to include today’s “Further Reading” section in our Festival by pointing out how much he enjoyed Nalini Nadkarni’s “Recommended Readings” listed in her latest book, Between Earth and Sky: Our Intimate Connections to Trees.

In his thoughts about the book Between Earth and Sky, Bill writes,

“In addition to trying to engender mindfulness, it also helps validate those of us in a related field, inspire us to persevere, and provides a nice, supportive, intellectually “safe” /fun/energizing place to go (i.e. a great book to curl up with on a rainy day and come away with a bit of a karmic recharge). Definitely someone to whom we can “look up.”

Nalini Nadkarni is a forest biologist who strives to help people find meaningful connections with the natural world. I invite you again to enjoy my interview with Nalini Nadkarni and learn about her latest book, Between Earth and Sky: Our Intimate Connections to Trees.




ZRNO – Aroreality – Tree Stories
By: Mateja Smid Hribar

Finally, a contribution from Mateja Smid Hribar of ZRNO. Mateja has created an Arboreality page at her ZRNO blog as a new home for tree stories. Mateja tells us,

“[…] Because of their long life span trees can be seen
as unique beings which link human generations and preserve their stories for the future. […] Although some of these tree specimens are not extremely thick or tall they have a story to tell.

Contributions here will be in Slovenian and English languages, depands [sic] on stories, circumstances and authors.”

Her first story: The Bent Fir Tree.

* * *

Thank you again to every contributor who shared their tree-inspired artwork and adventures for this issue.

Special thanks to Founders Dave Bonta and Pablo Roundrocker for their ongoing support of The Festival of the Trees.

The Festival of the Trees 29 will be hosted on November 1, 2008 at Dave Bonta’s Via Negativa. Send submissions to bontasaurus [at] yahoo [dot] com or using the blog carnival submission form (link soon available). Submission deadline for issue 29 is October 29, 2008.


New hosts are always welcome for upcoming issues of The Festival of the Trees. To learn more and volunteer visit The Festival of the Trees coordinating blog.

* * *

All images used by permission in this post are © Copyright 2008 Linda Lovisa of Natural Transitions Art Studio (www.linda-lovisa-canada-art.com). Do not reproduce without permission.

Images of Linda Lovisa's artwork in order of appearance:

Freely Flowing Moutain Creek

Path Dabbled in the Light

Lone Poplar

Meandering Trail

Fairies Niche

Moonlight Peaks

Earth Bound

A Mystical Place

Two Seasons Met

The Nursery

Reflections of Spring

Wonders Above

This Issue 28 of The Festival of The Trees "Art and Arboreality" was prepared for your enjoyment by Jade Leone Blackwater.

Love Affair with the Santa Barbara Moreton Bay Fig Tree

And then I saw you, silhouetted on the sidewalk.

Like a thousand eyes watching, no part of me left unseen.

Limb by limb, shoulder by shoulder, learning you petal by petal.

Snake-like and certain, our tongues smell earth, breeze, ocean mist.

A fence may stand between us, but I still feel your electricity;

gaze on your sweet under-places luminous with sunrise.

I reach up as you reach up, bend back and breathe in;

shimmy in the warmth of new day and clap, extend a fresh leaf on each bright finger.

I take pictures of your curves so I can stare at you alone, smooth my finger along forbidden branches; sigh.

Your infinite patience dwarfs me. I leave you smaller than I began.

Quietly I admire your persistent fruitfulness, your marriage of mathematics and magic.

We listen closely together to hear above the highway, small moments flicker as shadow follows shadow.

I want to sit back to trunk with you; exhale, close my eyes and wait for understanding.

* * *

© 2008 Jade Leone Blackwater

For The Festival of the Trees 28: Art and Arboreality

October 1, 2008.

The Festival of the Trees is a monthly blog carnival hosted at a different blog each month. The theme for the Festival of the Trees 28 is "Art and Arboreality", which will be published on Wednesday, October 1, 2008.

I'm still accepting a few late entries, so if you would like to participate just follow these three easy steps:

1. Let a tree inspire you today.



2. Share your creation at your blog.



3. Email me your submission: jadeblackwater [at] brainripples [dot] com.

PS - Special preference given to all you fortunate folks seeing those beautiful autumn colors!!! Won't some kind, northerly blogger send me a sumptuous sugar maple in autumn color?

The Festival of the Trees 20 online at Ginkgo Dreams

The Festival of the Trees 20 is online at Ginkgo Dreams courtesy of this month’s host Kelly Schmitt Youngberg. Kelly has prepared a truly unique collection, and her festival has a graceful, meditative quality – much like the ginkgo tree. This collection is not to be missed – so off you go, into the woods!

To volunteer to host a future festival, and to submit blog posts to future festivals, visit the Festival of the Trees coordinating blog.

Change is Coming, and the Trees Know It

Greetings! I hope you have all enjoyed these last bits of summer (or winter, should you live south of the equator). Autumn is just starting to raise its voice in Eastern Pennsylvania, but there's enough summer left to keep my kitchen filled with tomatoes.

During my time away from blogging I’ve crafted new ideas, taken loads of pictures, fixed up the disaster in my house, and created new project plans for the coming season. I have much to share!

Pictures and thoughts about trees and forests will resume at Arboreality later this week. Postings will be once or twice per week while I give my energy to my newest projects. Provided all goes well, Arboreality itself may be pulling up its roots, and migrating to a whole new domain!

But you’re just here for the trees, right? I’ll get right on it.

Until then, remember to check out the Festival of the Trees. The new issue went online on the first.

Arboreality is on Vacation

Greetings Folks! Our weekend’s new moon and the master disaster it heralded in my home is taking me offline for the remainder of the summer. I’ll check in from time to time, but until then, I look forward to returning in September. Autumn is a great time of year for tree blogging!

Be sure to look for the upcoming issues of the Festival of the Trees, and consider volunteering to host. See you soon, Happy Summer!

The Festival of the Trees 12 - Meditations

Greetings and welcome to the Festival of the Trees 12 - Meditations.

Many of us blog about trees or forests because of the personal connections we make with them in our day-to-day. Amid the bombastic cries in the media of “Go Green” and “Stop Global Warming,” it can be easy to overlook the power of our individual relationships with trees to help change the way we (as a species) interact with the Earth. When we blog about trees in our respective regions, we share a sort of ongoing, global meditation on the green and growing world.

Our cover image for Festival of the Trees 12: Meditations is “The Tree” from the Gaian Tarot by Joanna Powell Colbert. For those who are unfamiliar, tarot is a tool which uses systems of symbols, images, archetypes, and other “alphabets” on a deck of cards to explore a given topic.

Tarot decks usually contain a sequence of 22 “majors”: a common set of standard cards, each rather like characters in a story. The Tree (Joanna’s version of The Hanged Man) is card number 12 in the tarot.

For our Festival of the Trees 12, I encourage you to take a moment to mediate on The Tree from the Gaian Tarot. What do you see? As we wander today’s collection, consider our simple, personal connections with trees and forests outside of environmental politics, policies, and as-yet-unsolved problems.

Hanami – Cherry Tree Blossom Viewing

Hanami, meaning “flower viewing,” is a Japanese custom of viewing cherry blossoms. People come out in the springtime to enjoy a sort of floral meditation as the cherry tree blossoms (sakura) open around Japan (and many other regions in the northern hemisphere).

It’s not difficult to understand why the deceptively simple act of flower viewing can warrant holidays and festivals around the world: cherry tree blossoms are beautiful. Bloggers I found who shared their Hanami experiences this spring seemed no less enthusiastic, as evidenced by their inability to post “just a few” pictures of the blooms.

Jason Truesdell of Pursuing My Passions has a two part series featuring "Hanami in Hirosaki, Aomori, Japan. Be sure to check out both Part 1 and Part 2. Nate and Ruth of Korea! Oh yah, you betchya share Spring in Korea: Yellow sand, beautiful flowers and high emotions.

In 1912, Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo, Japan gifted the city of Washington D.C., United States with 3,000 cherry trees as “a memorial of national friendship between the United States and Japan and a celebration of the continued close relationship between the people of the two countries.”

Ryan of Northfield Center, Ohio who writes the American Peak blog, visited Washington D.C. while in hiatus in time for the National Cherry Blossom Festival.

Back Yards Around the World

This month I wanted to take advantage of the world wide web to help connect us with different places around the world, and the trees that live there.

Candice Dillhoff of Leavenworth, Washington, USA lives in the Eastern Cascade Mountains of North America. At her Wee Cottage Art Studio blog she shares the sensational view of her home this spring. Pablo at Roundrock Journal is reporting some sort of Blackhaw blooming in the Missouri Ozarks, USA.

In the Eastern Ontario Highlands of Canada, Cate (Kerrdelune) of Beyond the Fields We Know shares New Leaves, and Sumac in Spring. History Mike of Toledo, Ohio, USA reflects On the Brilliance of Spring Colors. And Karen of Rurality reveals the secret life of roots in North Central Alabama, USA.

Trees and forests have marvelous powers of regeneration, and Silver Valley of Kellogg, Idaho, USA is experiencing its second chance. Silver Valley Girl shares one of her Silver Valley Stories with a promising ending. Meanwhile, back in the holler Cady May in Hartsville, Tennessee, USA shares Random Acts of Recovery of an Oak Tree.

GreenmanTim is still Walking the Berkshires (and Litchfield Hills) of the Housatonic Valley in northwest Connecticut, USA. If you haven’t read the good news elsewhere, be sure to visit GreenmanTim reporting on ElmWatch: Restoring the American Elm.

A genuine tree lover if there ever was one, Salix Tree of the Windy Willow blog from Ireland shares tree blossoms and Tinkerbelle’s Tree. Bitterroot of Bitterroot and Bergamot opens a window to Wisconsin, USA with Tree on a Cliff and Ephemeral beauty. And Claudia Lüthi of Lima, Peru blogging at though trees grow so high... shares the thousand aspects of trees for this month's Festival.

I'm an American, so I suppose it’s natural that I’ll find a lot of links in the US. However, I was fortunate this month to be found by several bloggers in Portugal, who demonstrate their country's true love of the arboreal.

At Dias com árvores, Manuela DL Ramos of Porto, Portugal reflects on trees with “Every breath you take.” And Pedro Nuno Teixeira Santos who writes A Sombra Verde from Covilhã, Serra da Estrela, Portugal, shares Sozinho (Viagens II) for this month’s festival. A Sombra Verde welcomes its readers with the following:

"A culture is no better than its woods" Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-1973).

You’ll notice that my list is still limited to just a few places around the world – if your region wasn’t mentioned, be sure to tell us about your local trees (and tree blog posts) in the comments below! (And of course, send your links in for next month's festival).

Art and Poetry

Originally I created the Brainripples blog to keep tree discussions separate from discussions on writing and art. Today I am enjoying an excuse to blend the two by sharing some of the artistic meditations I found online. Trees and artists go together like peanut butter and strawberry preserves!

Connie Tom of A Painting for You! posted A Walk Through the Woods IV. Ester Wilson of Daily Drawings has been especially inspired by trees lately. Be sure to explore each of her offerings: doodles and paint, moleskine trees, painting ideas, and her collaboration project with James of Oil Covered Hands.

Take A Walk Through Durham Township, Pennsylvania with Kathleen Connally to see The First Grass of Spring, and then stroll over to join Joe Felso of Ruminations as he ponders the Spring Crown.

At The Clarity of Night, Jason Evans stays true to his reputation for making his readers stop and reflect with his creative writing piece Rings, and his thoughts on the Wild Black Cherry (Prunus serotina).

Deborah Barlow of Slow Muse shares What is Unfolding ("Beginners" by Denise Levertov), and the eloquent Bernita Harris of An Innocent A-Blog helps inspire some mystery for the Festival with A Tree's Ghost.

Melanie of Pink Lemon Twist provides us with a unique incorporation of tree forms in art with her Hanami stole. I was intrigued not only by the delicate design so true to the cherry blossom form, but by the symbolism incorporated into the weave itself.

At Idle Minutes, Don West shares a Tree Study. In his comments, Don identifies the true root of the Art and Poetry segment of our Meditations: artists across media are inevitably inspired by trees, and it all starts with careful looking and patient listening.

Wit, Whimsy, and Whatnot

It was my goal to keep this month's festival light-hearted, and I’d like to finish up with a garden salad of musings and other meditations on trees and forests.

I must have been on a common wavelength with Maureen at Timothy’s Shop Talk who shared some meditations on trees with a helping hand from Hermann Hesse.

Vicky Sawyer Herrala writing TGAW has some disturbing evidence of hungry trees!

Jorge Daniel Neves writing Jardinando sem parar from Lisbon, Portugal shares the enthusiasm for the Festival de árvores sobre, árvores em cimento by providing a continuation of “trees in the concrete” theme of the Festival of the Trees 11 at Flatbush Gardener.

Karen Shanley, an Author Mom with Dogs, tells us all about her Old Friend, and Maggie at Maggieno's Journal paints images with words in One More for the Road, Day Two: Big Trees and Thursday in the Rain Forest. Meanwhile, Cady May is searching for patterns (again) back in the holler.

And if you need to turn your perspective on its head, try climbing up a tree and looking down on the world with Dobster at the Travel Blog. Dobster shares a climb with the Gloucester and Bi-centennial trees of Pemberton, Western Australia.

If you haven’t been following the treeblog, Ash has some seedling updates, and shows us the equally impressive Plane Tree of Hippocrates.

In the Land of Little Rain, Maureen Shaughnessy shares with us again the trees she has known and loved.

As you wander your corner of the world this weekend, be sure to take a moment to look up, listen for the wind, and meditate on those trees which you have known and loved.

* * *

Next month’s Festival of the Trees 13 will be hosted by Wren of Wrenaissance Reflections on July 1, 2007. Send submissions to treefest [at] wrenaissance [dot] com by June 29.

Want to be alerted of upcoming Festivals of the Trees? Visit the Festival of the Trees coordinating blog or click here to sign up for email notification with Feedblitz.

You can also visit the Festival of the Trees coordinating blog to learn more about submissions, festivals past and present, and how to volunteer to host future issues of the Festival of the Trees at your blog.

Thank you to all of today’s contributors, and to Pablo and Dave for keeping the Festival of the Trees alive.

Special thanks to Joanna Powell Colbert for the use of her image The Tree from the Gaian Tarot for the cover image, and to Kirsten Annette Dillhoff for the use of her photography in today's Festival of the Trees.

Artists and authors retain their original copyrights for all images and blog posts included in today’s Festival of the Trees 12: Meditations.

Photo credits, top to bottom:

The Tree, © 2007 Joanna Powell Colbert

Rhododendron blossoms, © 2007 Kirsten Annette Dillhoff

White pine branch, © 2007 J. L. Blackwater

Birch canopy, © 2007 Kirsten Annette Dillhoff

Olympic Mountains, Seabeck, WA, © 2007 J. L. Blackwater

Banana Slug, © 2007 Kirsten Annette Dillhoff

Trilliums, © 2007 J. L. Blackwater

Lichens, © 2007 J. L. Blackwater

Mosses, © 2007 J. L. Blackwater

Mystery beech, © 2007 J. L. Blackwater

Larch, © 2007 J. L. Blackwater

Magnolia, © 2007 Kirsten Annette Dillhoff

* * *

For all the posts we've shared today, there were dozens more that I simply had to let go (for my sanity's sake). Remember to spread the word about tree blogs, submit to future Festivals of the Trees, and keep on blogging!

**06/04/07 editor's note: Thanks to all our readers today as I have updated the Festival of the Trees to include all the images planned for this issue. I appreciate your patience. Thanks again - JLB

Fesitval of the Trees 11 Now Online at Flatbush Gardener

The Festival of the Trees 11 “Trees in the Concrete” is now online courtesy of this month’s host, Xris of Flatbush Gardener. I guarantee you hours of blissful procrastination – Xris has a real garden full of links for you to explore.

Next month, the Festival of the Trees returns to Arboreality for its 12th edition. Send your submissions to jadeblackwater [at] brainripples [dot] com, or use the Blog Carnival submission tool. Submissions are due by May 29th.

For more information about the Festival of the Trees, or to learn how to become a host, visit the Festival of the Trees coordinating blog.

[Pictured above is just one of the many treasures I brought back from the Washington forests. More ahead!]

Alive and Kicking

I’m not dead, but if you’d asked me a few days ago I might have said yes. My apologies for my two-week absence: I’ve been sick!

In other news, spring is awakening around the farm, and there is so much to show you! I’m sowing seeds and watching the first flowers awaken, including Winter aconite, daffodils, and croci. (Guess what I discovered when I looked back at last year's entries for those links? I was sick at almost the exact same time last year!) As soon as I get out with my camera, I'll have pictures for you.

And to toot my horn a little, I had a photograph published in Pennsylvania Pursuits Magazine. It’s one of my images of the mulberry trees from around the farm. If you subscribe, flip to the end of the magazine to find my image with a silk worm article.

There is more ahead. Thank you all for your patience, kindness, and support, and HAPPY SPRING!

PS – So tell me, how fast does the Arboreality header image load for you? If it’s not showing up, please let me know so I can find another image hosting service!

No No Zoto

Well, my photo hosting at Zoto is no more, so please bear with me – our forested header and icons will return shortly!

As you can see, Spring is not far off here outside Philadelphia!

Festival of the Trees 8 Now Online at Ginkgo Dreams

Hooray! The Festival of the Trees 8 is now online at Ginkgo Dreams, courtesy of Kelly Schmitt Youngberg. I am on my way over there now! Hop over for stories, images, and hand-on-bark encounters with the trees and forests. :)

Pictured above: the Butternut tree over the driveway.

Festival of the Trees: Reminder

There’s still plenty of time to send in your submissions for the upcoming Festival of the Trees 9, to be hosted by Kelly Schmitt Youngberg at Ginkgo Dreams.

Send your tree, forest, and wood related blog posts, be they silly, philosophical, scientific, or whimsical, to: kelly [at] ginkgodreams [dot] com

To learn more about the Festival of the Trees, or to enjoy some of the previous festivals, visit the Festival of the Trees Coordinating blog.

Also, if you would like to be a host for a future issue of the Festival of the Trees, be sure to visit the Volunteer to Host page at the Festival of the Trees Coordinating blog to learn more!

Nature Preserve Blogs

After sharing what I learned about the Open Space Preservation Department in Chester County, Pennsylvania, I heard from Oliver Bass, Senior Director of Development and Communications with Natural Lands Trust.

Natural Lands Trust manages numerous preserves around Pennsylvania, including Sadsbury Woods Preserve and Stroud Preserve of Chester County. Apparently, several of those preserves also maintain blogs with news and information! You can now find links to them both at the Natural Lands Trust blogs page, and in the Arboreality sidebar under Conservation and Preservation Blogs. Be sure to check them out!

What are your favorite green blogs? What blogs do you look to for news about the environment, trees and forests, conservation, land preservation, nature, and other earth news and information?

If you're still looking for blogs with environmental information, be sure to play around in the Arboreality sidebar - there's lots to explore in that little forest.

Festival of the Trees 6 – Taking Root and Bearing Fruit

Welcome to the Festival of the Trees 6!

I have emerged from a dense forest of tree blogging to share some of my favorite discoveries. Would that I could have included them all! Thank you to Dave Bonta for his support in preparing this festival.

Blogging about trees and forests at Arboreality provides me with the unique opportunity to share my daily discoveries among the trees. When I started out, I intended to use Arboreality as a vehicle both to share information, and to help me improve my plant identification skills.

The true surprises for me actually come from reading other blogs about trees and plants. Has anyone else noticed how amazing it is to watch forests and gardens grow and change in unison across the world? I love seeing how a certain tree or flower will blossom in my neck of the woods, only to emerge a week later in another region. Even more fun is to see how dramatically different wildlands and gardens can look in different regions of the earth.

Over at Brainripples, reader Ester Wilson recently responded to a question about creativity with the following: “I’m sure that everything in the world has potential to pull out creativity within people. It may just depend on how much you’re willing to let it come out, how willing you are to be fascinated by the world.”

I hope that this month’s Festival of the Trees encourages you all to renew your willingness to be fascinated by the world, and to be touched by the trees.

[Photo above: Autumn Leaves, courtesy of Renata Vincoletto]

Turning Seasons

Many of us in the northern hemisphere have been enjoying the color show with the passage of Autumn, and it’s my pleasure to share some of the many signs of the seasons I found online in full color.

For the curious, Caroline at Earth Friendly Gardening shares with us the mysteries of how and why leaves turn color in the autumn. Petunia’s Gardener enjoys the benefits of the big leaf maple and the ornamental cherry trees in mulching.

Lené of Counting Petals is Giving Thanks, Pam of Nature Woman was awed by sparkling trees, surprise rainbows, and busy birds, and Mary Ellen at Poetry, Art, & the Fotoz of my life shares the many colors of Sacramento.

Amba at Ambivablog tells us about her maple tree as it awes them with its annual color show, while Roger at Words & Pictures shares his Sweet chestnut and Ginkgo, still full of life at the turn of the season.

With autumn coming to a close, KerrdeLune of Beyond the Fields We Know peers through the looking glass at seasons past. Petunia’s Gardener sees the first snows of the Pacific Northwest coat her late season apples. Sandra of here in Korea shares the annual wrapping of ornamentals in straw, to protect the trees through the coming winter, while Cindy at Woodsong shows us the Snow Bunting birds gracing the trees like fluffy ornaments. Speaking of tree ornamentation, Lorrianne of Hoarded Ordinaries gives us proof that deciduous trees can get into the Christmas spirit!

For those who are not quite as excited as I am for the autumn and winter, take a trip down under to see what Alice at A Growing Delight is enjoying in Australia, including her recent visit to a Canberra Nature Park at Gungahlin Hill.


UK National Tree Week

This month’s Festival of the Trees 6 coincides with the UK National Tree Week, established by the UK Tree Council in 1975. Vicky at Green Girls Global tells us about some of the celebrations and events of Nottingham in honor of National Tree Week.

Many of our UK bloggers share their activities celebrating trees for National Tree Week. Morgan shares her “ode to trees,” Deirdre shares her tree planting experience, and Ross at the SEO blog tells us how ANYONE online can help to support tree planting in the UK for National Tree week simply by registering with Litegreen.com.


Treemania in Urbania

In addition to celebrations like National Tree Week in the UK, the National Arbor Day in the US was first conceived by pioneers J. Sterling and Caroline Morton after their arrival in Nebraska. Their idea evolved into what is now a holiday celebrated at different dates in countries, states, and cities around the world.

Hanna of This Garden is Illegal tells us a little about her Tree City, USA, a program sponsored by the National Arbor Day foundation.

In Georgia, Jesse of Tree News spreads the good word about a city that has its priorities straight – and has spared no effort to preserve a huge, old Pecan tree in the face of urban development.

Even with our most valiant efforts and most noble intentions, some trees have to come down. Dave at Via Negativa tells us the history and conclusions of the Gilead trees near his father’s home.

And then, there are those trees that we might WANT to take down, but just can’t find the heart to remove. Before I moved from Washington to Pennsylvania, I had no concept of the invasive presence of the beautiful Norway maple. Body Soul and Spirit shares how torn we can be when trying to share space with these hearty trees when she advises us to just Say NO! to Norway Maples. Kasmira discusses a similar conflict when she shares what she thinks of Norway spruce.

[Photo above: Sumac Branch, courtesy of Maureen Shaughnessy]

Reflections and Meditations

At the heart of this month’s Festival of the Trees are the more subtle and inquisitive connections we make with trees.

Michelle at Living Stress-Free shares with us the tree-standing stances she’s learned, and a beautiful tree-meditation.

Bev at Burning Silo shares a exciting four part series exploring the coastal redwoods. You can enjoy Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four of the redwood series while slipping quietly into your own verdant reverie.

Many of us either owned or played in treehouses (ok, some of us probably still do), and Lois at Nina’s Treehouse shares a whimsical, poetic story about an old lemon tree, and the coming together of all ages in the shade of its fragrant branches.

Over at Ginkgo Dreams, Kelly brings us daily ginkgo-bites, and my favorites are always the Photo Wednesdays! Check out her latest, Ginkgos in Turin, Italy.

Mother Angel offers an early painting that wraps love, youth, and trees into a single, sensual image. Salix Tree is tickled with arborsculpture, and Marja-Leena Rathje shares the unique xylothek (wooden library).

Reaching deeper into the abstract, Crack Skull Bob shares his own interpretation of the dendritic form in his post A Tree is a Graph. Larry of Riverside Rambles shows us the Little Hyphal Trees of the amazing and important mychorriza.

[Photo above: Thuja plicata (Western red cedar), courtesy of Daniel Mosquin]

Explorations

Most of us enjoy the thrill of exploration and discovery in our local gardens and forests. Xris of Flatbush Gardener visited the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens and returned with a plethora of pictures. GreenmanTim is Walking the Berkshires and finding all manner of new and strange trees of the Namibian desert.

Regular readers at Arboreality know that I love a good mystery tree, which is exactly what Pablo of the Roundrock Journal is puzzling in his neck of the Missouri woods. And here at Arboreality, I’ve been sharing bits and pieces of my recent trip to the Poconos, including my stay in the Forests of Chateau Mumu.

Salix Tree shares her favorite tree, an oak in Phoenix Park near Dublin, and Yellowstone Wolf uses picture and poetry to share her paper wasp nest discovery.

If you’re looking to recapture a sense of wonderment, Isabella, Age 9 will take you there with her post A New Home at causa nostrae laetitiae. Still firmly rooted in his sense of delight, Larry at botanizing shows us the Light on the forest floor.

For those who require a unique perspective to help shake up their point of view, Dave at Via Negativa and Jason at The Clarity of Night share with us a bird’s eye view from tree stands.

Jason has the project for you if you prefer introspection to exploration: this month he’s shared a peek into the old growth hemlock surrounding the fruit of his labor, his new log cabin.


The Enduring, the Recalcitrant, and the Misbehaving

Trees are troublemakers too! I’d say most of us have a tale (or two) about the tree that just wouldn’t follow orders. Of course, the most admirable of this bunch are the trees that have refused to yield the passage of time with anything less than continued growth and grandeur.

Patrick at Ramblings of a naturalist tells us about the Veteran oak in the High Weald, and Jeremy of the voltage gate shares part of the venerable history of the Eastern Hemlock trees.

Methuselah and the bristlecone pine trees are among the oldest living trees on earth, but that doesn’t mean they have half the clout of the mighty baobab trees (also called Upside down trees, or Monkey bread trees). Baobabs, native to Africa, Australia, and Madagascar, are important sources of food, water, and medicine. Terry at Pencil Shavings shares a wonderful drawing of the amazing baobab, and if you want to see the magnificence of the real deal, visit Ursi’s blog and the Champion Trees.

Of course, not all the greats can last forever. Sonia at Leaves of Grass says goodbye to an old arboreal friend, and Karen of Rurality must reluctantly let go of the beautiful but misbehaving Hickory tree. Conan the Historian connects us with the New York Times article, which tells us that the Chestnut tree at Anne Frank's sanctuary must finally come down.

While the old trees fall, the young rise up into the light. Over in Brittany, Stuart and Gabrielle are experimenting with permaculture, and enjoying their latest discovery: a medlar tree and its pear-like fruits. And in Mountain Time, Trailhead is at once torn and bemused with the defiant and energetic evergreens who insist on reclaiming every inch of earth, right up to the house foundation.

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Join us for the Festival of the Trees 7, to be hosted at The Voltage Gate. Submissions deadline is December 30, 2006. Send all submissions (including post title and URL) to Jeremy by email: thevoltagegate [at] gmail [dot] com. Be sure to put "Festival of the Trees" in the subject line. For additional information about the Festival of the Trees, check out the coordinating blog.

Images with credits retain their copyrights with the original authors. All other images in today’s Festival are from the Arboreality files, copyright © 2006 Jade L. Blackwater.

May the wonder of trees, forests, and gardens continue to inspire us all!

Until next month!