I found these white pea-sized things on some trees in my garden. The garden is in Lower Saxony, Germany. I already looked through similar questions here but none of them looked quite like this.
From what I read so far it must be some kind of insect in its winter state. But can anyone say what kind of insect?
I think that might be a branch from a Juniperus species, a female, and those are the berries or 'seed pods', example here: Juniper berries (Wikimedia).
Some Junipers have white berries, many have berries which start out white and change through to bluish black, so if your plant has many of these, that's all they are, and certainly nothing to worry about.
They are cones - in some conifer genera (Juniperus) the scales are fused to form berry like structures. These look to me to be more like immature Cupressus cones - eventually they will turn brown and scales split (this may take some time and in some species requires fire!). Whilst the foliage could be the mature foliage that develops on some Juniperus species (juvenile foliage is needle-like and persists on the Common Juniper, Juniperus communis, and many other species), it does look more like Cupressus.
They aren't insects, so don't worry, just enjoy watching them develop.
