Recently in changes Category

You can really see the tearing on this top bud here. Amazing!

Look, there's a bunch of shreds still left on the purple stuff of that one! Fascinating. I wonder if the bud also gets thinner so that it's easier for the purple stuff to push its way out. Or do the buds really just disintegrate, sort of like the roots of a baby tooth when it's time for it to fall out?

PS - Can I just say that the macro function on my camera is a wonderful thing! It has allowed me to look so closely at these buds. I've been able to see things I never would have noticed if I was only using my eyes.

Not much difference, if any. But those buds in the left corner of the picture do look a little further along.

Here's another cluster from yesterday:

And the same cluster three days ago:

Humph.

Finally, here's the tip of another twig yesterday:

And here's that same twig six days ago after some light snowfall:

That's definite progress!

There's more snow expected tonight, so I'm guessing these buds will stay in the slow lane for a while still.

Huzzah!

Well, these dark dots are on almost all of the buds now.

They look like eyes opening.

The ones that opened first look like they have grape jelly oozing out of them.

What is that stuff going to be?! And if it is the flowers, will any of them turn into the galls that I've seen on my tree? That would be fascinating to see.

And I wonder what effect this morning's snow will have on their growth.

It certainly doesn't make me want to go out! I imagine it might affect them in the same way.

Little purpley things are in there!

They look like they could be teeny tiny seeds or the beginning of flowers. They're all bundled up in there and seem to be poking through the center of each swollen bud. This! is! so! exciting!

Here's one that is just about to crack. You can see a little dark spot at the center of the buds here, where the little purple seeds will soon be poking out. It's like watching a baby chick hatch. Come on, you can do it!

The lateral buds along the side of the branches are opening up too.

If you look real close, it looks like the buds are even fuzzy.

They are so different than they were just two weeks ago. And what a change from the buds on the broken off branch I found in the snow a month ago.

Hello spring!

Those buds are definitely bigger! I've been checking every day, but maybe it's like a child growing up before your eyes: you just don't notice the subtle changes. Today, in the sunlight, the buds look like they're almost swollen. Are they just waiting to burst?!

At the very tip of the twig closest to the window, I see this.



Doesn't the top bud look like it's about to crack open? It's got sort of a plus (+) shaped ridge on the tip like a phillips head screwdriver. And that little nail looking thing in front of the bud looks different than the rest of the bud and twig. It looks smooth and shiny, not dried and rough. Could that be something growing?! A little look back in the blog reveals that this was here two weeks ago, but I hadn't noticed it then. Could it be lighter now? Larger? I'm not sure.

Here's another tip on an offshoot from my twig.



This one has that little nail thing too, although it looks more like the rest of the bud. Looking at it up close like this, it looks like the bud is breaking through the tip of the twig, doesn't it? I hadn't really thought about how the buds were attached, but this looks like it's pushed it's way out and that little nail thing is something leftover from when the tip was closed or maybe covered with a smaller bud.

Hey, that's a good question: are these buds getting longer? I've actually been looking for the pointiness of the buds to go away. My thinking was that they would start to open and so the point would go away. But I haven't seen things getting less pointy. In fact, it might just be that the buds are getting more pointy. Could they be looking more pointy because they are growing taller out of the tip of the branch?

I feel like something could be about to happen! It's St. Patrick's Day today and we're all wearing green. How long until the tree will also be wearing green?

Here's another photo of a different twig on the same tree. You can really see how much lighter and redder this part is. And again there's two other little buds right there where the color changes. It's just as if the twig was growing from that point that is now in the middle.

And here's another little tiny twig I found on a small tree near the one above. The house behind these trees recently burned down and many branches were broken off as the firefighters were battling the blaze. I felt like it would be okay to snap off a tiny twig from the baby tree as it was almost completely severed from it tiny little trunk.



Look at how green the end of the twig is! The bottom part looks like a normal grayish twig, then there are some of those knuckles I noticed on a twig from my tree a couple of weeks ago and then it gets greener and greener, and then there's the bud. It really reminds me of that sprout of S's!

Is this going to happen on my tree? Nothing on my tree looks like really new growth. All the twigs are gray and bark-y looking, with the tips being slightly smoother and whiter. These newer parts don't have as many scars on them from old buds, but they don't look like they just grew this year. Hmmmmm..... Are all those buds on my tree's twigs going to sprout? That's a lot of buds. Is that why my tree seems to have these explosions of new branches?

I so want to think that that one is cracking open, but I'm not sure that that bud hasn't looked like that the whole time.

Here's another bud.



You can see that each of these terminal buds has two big, plump looking buds on either side of it and, if you look real close, it even seems to have a little top wing and bottom wing. Are they pulling away from the center bit? Is the center maybe growing away from them? Will those top and bottom wings become big plump buds too? And how is all of this going to make a flower? Or a leaf?

Here are some buds on the twig I'm watching.



You can see here that there are some color variations within the bud itself. The big, plump side buds are darker brown on the edges and a lighter beige in the middle. Is this bud-set further along in its development than the one above? The two little wings do seem farther away from the terminal bud in this set. And even the buds on the side of the twig here seem to show this color differentiation. It almost looks like a nut, when you crack it open and the darker outer shell reveals a lighter nut inside. Is that what's happening here? Is it opening?

And is any of this really a change from before? Here's a zoomed-in section from a photo I took of my tree in the middle of February before I figured out how to take awesome close-ups.



These terminal buds might be a little pointier, but the buds right next too it look pretty plump and the side buds look like they could have that lighter-colored center.

And here's a section from a photo I took of my twig way back when I began the blog.



Looks really similar. I wish I could say there are some real changes here, but I'm just not convinced.