If you are into botanicals...

[GaryE]

For North American, and probably northern European members, it is now hunting season. This morning when I was walking my dog in a the graveyard across the street, I noticed two deciduous trees I hadn't spotted before. The cemetery is a sea of maple trees, all around the same height and age, and I assumed that was all I'd ever see there.

Instead, there was a non native English oak, and a native red oak side by side up a less travelled path. They will be ideal for leaf collecting in a couple of months, when the dead brown leaves can be harvested for use as tannin sources and as fish shelters. I find that if you gather them before they hit the ground, they last better and decay more slowly.

So now is the time to get yourself a dog and go walking. You can look for oaks and know where to go to gather their leaves for a year's supply of effective botanicals, for free. Then, after you fiind oaks, you can spot sources for alder cones, another useful autumn harvest.

 

[Wills]

I have a lot of beech and oak trees near me and I always see stuff fallen - no good for me really - but I always worry about the dog pee situation! Annoyingly they are all on managed woodlands and the fallen branches sit behind barbed wire... some cracking dried out pieces that must have been left as they are likely worthless to other markets but a small fortune to mugs like me...

 

[GaryE]

Some oak species retain their dead leaves until a really good winter storm comes along. I don't know about English oaks. That's a naturalized invasive to me, and I haven't met up with one here before. I guess one of the people buried near it was English, and it may have been a tribute type thing. Very exotic.

 

[Back in the fold]

I like Chinese Elm . They grow so many different ways . No two alike .

 

[Magnum Man]

The Northern Red Oak is a great one to pick, as they hold their leaves through the winter, & don't drop them until the new ones start growing in the spring... I've been planting several every year on the farm, as there were no Oaks here, when we came...

 

[GaryE]

The Northern Red Oak is a great one to pick, as they hold their leaves through the winter, & don't drop them until the new ones start growing in the spring... I've been planting several every year on the farm, as there were no Oaks here, when we came...

My first two went into the ground this Spring. They are doing well. Up here, they tend to lose the leaves before Spring as we have what seems like an increasing number of freezing rain storms, and it always gets windy in winter. The brittleness of the ice takes the leaves off.

I like Chinese Elm . They grow so many different ways . No two alike .

I haven't heard of them being good for botanicals in a tank. The guy next door has a huge elm, and they weren't hit by Dutch Elm Disease around here. I hadn't seen one since I was a kid.

 

[JuliaAndFish co.]

I love beech trees, I find that a huge old tree with small leaves is beautiful, and they just seem so majestic. I also use their leaves for my blackwater tank, as they take a while to decay and are great for tannins.