can you identify this wood? often asked I know

[woodfarmer]

Today I recovered some "cuttings" I made from layering a tree that grows in my back garden that I wanted to propagate. I have seen them in Cornwall and they are quite common here. Oddly the biggest one always seem to be on a river bank. The pictures shown are of a very small bit of branch removed as surplus from a layered cutting. Will try to see what it turns like tomorrow (might cut a bigger piece as the mother tree needs pruning/tidying).

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Might be a type of willow - they tend to grow well near water, and they will grow from layering.

 

[marcros]

Looks like a willow. If you stick some decent sized pieces in the ground they will likely grow roots- a lot of living garden structures and tunnels are made that way.

 

[woodfarmer]

sorry guys but it isn't willow.

but it is deciduous.

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

appearance wise...I'd say Hazel

 

[deserter]

I'm with Bob on this one, Hazel.

Sent from my D5503 using Tapatalk

 

[Grahamshed]

It looks like the sumach I chopped down recently but without all the resin that was in my main trunk.

 

[Vic Perrin]

Robina Mountain Ash

Vic

 

[KimG]

Pretty certain it's not Hazel, which is much paler in colour on young bark that the offshoot of this log, the older the wood with Hazel the more bumpy it tends to get too. But young wood is more birch like.

Here are some images of Hazel.

But I don't have a suggestion as to what it is sorry!

 

[KimG]

White Willow looks different too.

 

[woodfarmer]

I will add some more information.

When I said "oddly" about seeing big ones by riverbanks, it was because it is not a tree you would associate with water.

Some of them produce fruit. It is my mums favourite fruit and were it not for mangoes would be mine also.
The fruit is highly regarded and early settlers took some trees to USA but it took them a while to get them productive.

You would instantly recognise both the leaf and the fruit.

I will add more tonight or tomorrow with some more photos.

 

[Grahamshed]

Well I am just going to keep on guessing tip I get one right. Instantly recognisable fruit and leave makes me think of Fig but I didn't think that would grow this far north.

 

[Grahamshed]

Hmmm.
No idea but it is something desirable in a garden but not something that sends out suckers or he wouldn't have layered it.
Some of them bear nice eatable fruit but probably not something obvious.
Easily recognisable.....
Hmmmm.
< I am enjoying this>

 

[AndyT]

Well I am just going to keep on guessing tip I get one right. Instantly recognisable fruit and leave makes me think of Fig but I didn't think that would grow this far north.

The OP is in Poitiers - but even as far north as 'Oxfordish' you can get big figs growing happily out of doors. I think your guess is right - but I don't know either!

 

[marcros]

Well I am just going to keep on guessing tip I get one right. Instantly recognisable fruit and leave makes me think of Fig but I didn't think that would grow this far north.

The OP is in Poitiers - but even as far north as 'Oxfordish' you can get big figs growing happily out of doors. I think your guess is right - but I don't know either!

And beyond that. My parents had a fig tree in Lincolnshire. The figs that started late the previous year never came to anything, but more seemed to develop in spring, and we had quite a few ripe ones during the summer.

Any further advance up the British Isles with figs...?

 

[woodfarmer]

Well I am just going to keep on guessing tip I get one right. Instantly recognisable fruit and leave makes me think of Fig but I didn't think that would grow this far north.

You are correct Grahamshed. What goes around comes around.

here is the "mother" tree

and some little "treelets"

As to how far north they can live, that is a funny one. After mid summer if they are starved of water they turn their sap into an energy rich latex looking liquid. This works like an antifreeze and they can then survive down to about -17C or more. If they have access to lots of water -2C to - 5C will kill off the green wood. So if you want Figs, best way is to plant them in concrete block raised beds about 4 ft square and 30 inches or so high, filled with well draining soil. Don't put mortar in most of the first row vertical joints. prevent them from being rained on after end of July to Aug 1st. They like heat and need it for the figs to ripen. They grow on new wood unlike vines.

 

[Grahamshed]

Funny things figs. I cannot stand fresh ones but dried are lovely.


Maybe its me thats funny.

 

[YouSpinMeRightRound]

My grandparents had a fig tree in Dublin - about the same latitude as Lincolnshire - which produced fruit. No ideas about the wood in the OP though.

 

[dickm]

There are a few fig trees in some of the old walled gardens up here and they have "figlets" most years but don't think they ever fill out and ripen.

Tried growing a couple in Milton Keynes before we moved, using the technique the OP suggests, but never got many figs.