WHO WILL SPEAK FOR THE TREES? ME! THAT’S WHO!

The Lorax (funny orange doctor seuss character with the voice of Danny Devito), was absolutely right about the trees. Who will speak for them!? If you ask me, Trees are the single most incredible group of flora on this planet. I Love trees, with a capital “L”. Every season of the year brings a surprise with it, when it comes to trees, but my favourite has to be the dry season, or the very fleeting spring, if you can even call it that, in my part of the world. Spring is officially in September. And its about 2 weeks long! But the flowers and new leaves do actually last longer than that. Some years, the flowers are spectacular, some years the leaves are spectacular. Other years not so much. I think it may be linked to the rains, and I hope that it means above average rain when they are as prolific! I think the thing that amazes me so much is really that this is the driest time of the year, we are talking hazy horizons, shimmering soils, mirages, baking hot sand, dust, heat on the wind buffeting you. We are talking bare ground, sparse yellow grass. Everything is waiting for the rain. Except the trees, apparently! No, they are just gettin’ on with it. Wild Pear/Dombeyas covered in white blossom can be seen dotted around the bush, Cassias, a.k.a ‘scrambled egg trees’ with bright yellow flowers, Kudu berry trees with their incredible range of orange, pink and red new leaves. Mopani trees are showing off with their autumn shades, as they are shedding their leaves! Unlike the brachystegia/miombo woodland trees, all in different stages of new leaf according to their species. Pink, bright green, red, orange. Just a kaleidoscope of colour. Driving along in a car can put you in danger of a car accident if you’re not careful. Combined with the yellow grass or light white fluff amongst the Mopani, the landscape is a vision that will bring tears to your eyes or joy to your heart, and cannot help to make you feel some kind of hope for this world we live in. You may feel as though the world is falling apart, but really if we all just got on with it like the trees and said ‘stuff you, I’m a tree and I am just getting on with what I need to and minding my own business’ then the world would be a better place.