Country diary: the horse chestnut has gone into moth-induced winter

Sandy, Bedfordshire: The giant leaves, which unfurled and splayed in spring into shapes like the feet of prehistoric birds, have curled up their toesIn these last green weeks before nature's traffic lights turn the trees to red and amber, there is little visible sign among them of the effects of a droughty summer. Though the garden rain gauge registered just 8mm of rainfall in 10 weeks from the end of May, it poured all through August, a daily deluge of birch seeds that filled every crack and cranny and clogged the spiders' webs with vegetarian fare.Drought-stressed silver birches cast unprecedented numbers of offspring into the wind, limes launched innumerable helicopter seeds to fall on parched soil, and oaks did not appear to even attempt their late summer spurt of Lammas growth. But in the autumnal reckoning, it appears to be photosynthesis as usual. Continue reading...