Tree houses, tree damage and tremendous. England, Canada and Jamaica
on George Hamilton (Jamaica), 05/May/2011 19:13, 34 days ago
The British know how terrible and challenging their weather can be so they protect their trees by growing them indoors. They appreciate their trees and treat them with care and respect, and all the way up to pomp and circumstance - even the evergreen monarchy is involved. Not all tree houses are as fancy as this one, but a trip to Britain is worth it to see the stately British tree houses, palaces, castles and cathedrals.The trees have been well looked after so they can now fulfill their role of being a forest. There is nothing so reassuring as walking in a forest secure in the knowledge that it's not going to rain on you. Canadians are also generally pretty safe for most of the year because the snow and ice chase away the rain on their outdoor trees. That aside, we'll soon see the dangers of having trees outdoors.Hmmm, what's this among the trees? A royal wedding?And here's a close up of the happy royal couple as they walk through the tree house. They have just carved their initials on one of the trees - pretty romantic, and so sensible doing it indoors. The headless gentleman to the right lent his bayonet to William for the purpose.Meanwhile across the Atlantic, Canadians think they have better weather than the British so they risk growing their trees outdoors. But sometimes this backfires terribly to the detriment of both trees and people. This house is around the corner from ours in Port Dalhousie - only about 100 meters or five chains away from us. It had a close call.Here's another photo that Bunty shot the same day from the 20 or so similar photos on her FaceBook page. Growing trees outdoors in Canada is just not a safe thing to do.And later in the day she took this interesting photo of a fallen tree and shadows, also in Port Dalhousie.But in Jamaica the weather is just perfect for trees with happy results - all the mangoes you can eat if you get past the barbed wire. There are also beautiful blossoms to admire. The barbed wire is understandable because this first tree is on the Jamaican Defense Force Up Camp base on Camp Road. I pass it daily on the way to work.A beautify pink flowered tree near the start of my bus route - I had to walk 3/4 of the way home to photo it - good exercise, and there wasn't enough time to photograph it on the way to work.This isn't a wonderful sunset shot, it's just me shooting too directly towards the sun a minute later. The real lighting is the same and the pink blossoms are still visible.Across Camp Road we have another type of tree:Another Camp Road mango tree but this time with yellow mangoes and an interesting lattice work of dead branches in front of it.The dead tree shows that life is not always safe for outdoor trees. Jamaicans trees also run the risk of bad things happen to them. For example, the hurricane season takes place between June and November annually.There may be some tree houses in Jamaica, like at Hope Gardens. The problem for Jamaica is that the trees generally grow too large to fit into British-style tree houses.Some final observations, , apart from the few local photos that I shot, Bunty took all the Canadian ones, while the English ones came from public sources with technical assistance from Dominic Ali.