Willow Galls

So last week I went outside and found this large bush full of these things.

They're cool and fuzzy and look like some sort of bud.










This is the type of branch they were on. 

Willow.  And I remembered it being a regular old willow.  Nothing special. The problem is that willow bushes don't have buds like that.

So either someone had uprooted my wild willow and planted some exotic cutie with fuzzy cone-ish buds or ..... well, I didn't know what. 

So I took the pics and  looked it up.

I heart Google.  I searched for 'willow cone image' and found other pics just like the top one.   And when I followed the links, I ended up at this post:  http://www.blogsmonroe.com/nature/2010/02/gnat%E2%80%99s-not-a-pine-cone/

You have to go there and read the whole post.   The guy is hilarious.

Long story short, this isn't a bud, it's a gall formed by gnats - or any of a number of other things like the gnats or that like to eat the gnats.

Now I'm wondering if I should leave 'em alone, or cut 'em off and burn 'em before we have an infestation of some kind.   

What do you guys think?

Cedar - Apple Rust

Our cedars get weird parasites.    Once in a while we get bagworms.     This year I noticed some weird galls.

They look like brains.

I looked them up and the news is not good.

They are the cedar-apple rust.    They start in cedars, and then in the warm spring rain, they sprout orange jelly-like 'hairs' out of each dimple.   The rust sends out spores looking for apple trees, which we have.   This might explain why we've never had good luck with apples.    Ever. 

Check out this site for some other good pics of this fungus.   

Now I'm going to have to decide whether or not to cut down those cedars or to cut down the apples [two of which aren't bearing anyway].     Feel free to weigh in.

Juniperus virginiana

Cedar trees.

Red cedar trees.

They pop up in uncultivated fields and along our roadsides.

They're evergreen and I love that.    We're surrounded by hardwood forests and they change a lot through the year.   The cedars give us some continuity.

They don't drop their leaves, they just get bigger.

One of the big questions we had was whether we have the eastern red cedar, or the southern red cedar.

Ours are upright and columnar. 

Except when they've been hacked by the county bush hog, which chops off everything at just above fence height.   Those cedars start to sprawl - but if left alone, they would have been upright and columnar.

Upright and columnar indicates that we have the eastern variety - Juniperus virginiana.

The southern variety is sprawling and irregular.   There is some debate whether it is another species entirely or a subspecies of Juniperus virginiana  [sp. silicicola].

Our cedars have beautiful blue berries.   The birds eat them and spread the seeds around. 

Sound familiar?   That's how we got so many elaeagnus trees, too.

The county bush hog just mangled some and we found the cuttings on the road.   I'm thinking they'll make pretty wreathes.