Lovely seeds of the Eastern Red Cedar

Stunning colours Lori!

Thanks Karen. I have three large cedars near our house. One is so close that people have been telling me that I should take it down... It looks like it was there since before the house was built (almost 60 yrs) and has been cut back to a stump a number of times..the base is quite large. The present growth is tall, straight and healthy. The deer come to eat the foliage and it appears that the turkeys like the seeds!

I so love being under trees. I am debating whether to plant my Swedish Birches, which are currently in large wooden planters, in to the gravel at the back. But its a bit risky I suppose. I shall have to look it up and see how big their roots are.

I've risked a few plants and it didn't work out well for me or the plant. I'm not familiar with Swedish Birch but I did look them up. They really are lovely! They're not exactly inexpensive either. Are they dalecarlica or lacinate? If they grow to 30 ft. you won't be keeping them in planters?

Mine are Dalecarlica Lori. I'm wishing I hadn't bought them now because I hadn't realised quite how tall they get. I shall keep them in the planters and see if I can 'Bonsai' them. If not, they may have to be rehomed.

Those colours are as good as flowers on some Hellebores.

I love birches. I have golden birches which must be somewhere between 60 and 100 yrs old and the white paper birches (used for making canoes) which usually don't live long enough to grow very large as they once did. I've seen some trees kept small by pollarding but for a good part of the year they are a little unsightly. Can you not plant large trees where you are? It makes sense if you don't have the room for them. I know growing and removing them is a monumental task and for me it's been a sharp learning curve. Plus trees are a very long term investment... I'm sad when I think I won't see the lovely little grove of oaks that I'm fostering grow into mightly trees.