Right Steps & Poui Trees

Tag Archives: trees


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That Tree at UTech…

There are many beautiful trees on the University of Technology (UTech) campus and one of the most beautiful is the iconic elephant ear tree in front of the Faculty of the Built Environment (FOBE)…

It is clear that the tree was taken into consideration when the building was designed…

Picture taken from FOBE website, 2022-2023 Orientation video

…which was very appropriate for a building that would house the Caribbean School of Architecture and the School of Building and Land Management.

The tree and the building are in close contact…

…on the upper floors.

It is a wonderful, spreading tree…

…with an impressive trunk…
…solid branches…

…and masses of such delicate leaves….

The pods under the tree show why these trees are called elephant ear trees (Enterolobium cyclocarpum). The oldest tree at Hope Gardens is an elephant ear tree that is more than 200 years old. I wonder how old this tree is.

A beautiful sight/site, whether you look in towards it…

…or out from under it….
That venerable tree at UTech must have been witness to so much change over time. May it stand for many more years!


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Once Upon a Sunset…

Leave me alone, please! Yes, yes, sunset photos are a dime a dozen. But watching the sun set is one of the things I love to do. Taking photos of the sunset sky is another thing I love to do. And sharing sunset photos is something else that I love to do. So…

Once upon a sunset, a woman noticed the evening light against a cluster of palms….

She grabbed her camera and climbed the stairs to the roof of her house. From that vantage point, she saw the sunset sky…

She smiled…and looked closer…click…

She played with the zoom on her camera and looked at the trees, the hills, the clouds, the light…

From speakers somewhere nearby, oldies but goodies were playing. John Holt was singing: “I love you, darling, and that’s no lie, oh-oh, Stick by me and I’ll stick by you…”

Once upon a sunset, on a roof in Kingston, Jamaica, life felt really good….


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An Act of Remembering…

Walking through the gardens of St Paul’s Cathedral in London recently, I noticed this bench…IMG_20191031_183412_resized_20191031_063444178 (1) bench st Pauls Cathedral

…and the plaque on it. I don’t know who Sandra Archer was or who arranged for this act of remembering… family, friends or colleagues…IMG_20191031_183247_resized_20191031_063318411 (3) plaque on bench St Pauls Cathedral

Our family did this recently, after my husband died. A plaque on a bench, under a tree at Hope Gardens…IMG_20191031_182517_resized_20191031_062634120 (1) tree and bench at Hope Gardens

An act of remembering…IMG_20191031_182736_resized_20191031_062817858 (1) plaque Hope Gardens

 


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Tree in a Backyard: Minnesota

I stood in a backyard in St Paul, Minnesota, trying to take a photo of a bright red cardinal as it flitted from tree to tree. Such a beautiful bird, but it just wouldn’t sit still! Every time I moved slowly into position to snap a photo, the bird flew off to a new vantage point! So I got no photo of the bird….

This tree in the backyard, however, stayed still enough for me to take a number of photos, which I now share with you. If anyone can identify the tree for me, I would be grateful.

Here is its crown pictured with two other trees against a clear blue sky…MN backyard tree

It had beautiful blossoms in abundance…P1390472 - MN backyard tree

Here they are closer up…P1390473 - MN backyard tree

The tree had such wonderfully rugged bark…P1390481 - MN backyard tree

And if you look very carefully, up towards the right in this photo, you may see the branch on which the cardinal was sitting moments before I captured this image!P1390480 - MN backyard tree


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Pausing on Garden Boulevard, Mona Heights

Garden Boulevard is the longest road in Mona Heights, running from the intersection with Old Hope Road near the Hope Gardens gate all the way to the intersection with Mona Road, where the aqueduct leads into the Mona Dam.

IMG_20190425_125537_resized_20190501_103755162 cut trees

As I turned onto Garden Boulevard at the Mona Road intersection last week, I noticed that some of the trees along the sidewalk had recently been cut.

IMG_20190501_104220_resized_20190501_104236885 cut trees

It was the bright colour of the cut wood that caught my attention and made me stop, park and get closer, to take photos of the pruned privet trees. The only sign of those who had done the cutting was a red cap seemingly forgotten near one of the pruned trees.

IMG_20190425_124457_resized_20190501_104941627 cut trees

Cut surfaces of different sizes and shapes.

 

And already, across the stump of one felled tree…

IMG_20190425_124308_resized_20190501_105208158 cut trees

…something new had begun to grow….

IMG_20190425_124347_resized_20190501_105603139 cut trees

Small details captured while pausing on a long road in Mona Heights one morning….

IMG_20190425_125346_resized_20190501_104504139 cut trees

(And if you’d like to see the full length of Garden Boulevard, take a look at this video I found online- click here.)Garden Blvd blog pic