A tale of two trees
Memory, legacy, and a pair of wonderful willows
You’re reading The Earthworm, a newsletter that takes a sideways look at the world of gardens, gardening, horticulture and all that good green stuff. If this is your first time here, you can catch up on anything you’ve missed by following this link. Subscribe now for free and join the community! You can also support me and my work on The Earthworm by upgrading to a paid subscription at any time – just tap the button below.
Gardens, even mature ones, are transient things. Places of flux. Yes, a garden can have history – in terms of its location, landscaping, theme or atmosphere – but the plants that make up that garden, generally not so much.
How many of the roses rambling through the White Garden at Sissinghurst were handled by Vita Sackville-West? How many of the grasses growing out of the gravel at Beth Chatto’s Garden were actually acquainted with the late, great plantswoman?
Part of the fun of gardening, as Michael Marriott pointed out in my last post, is that plants can be moved around. If a plant falls foul to pests or disease or a gardener’s whimsy, then it can be uprooted without a moment’s hesitation. A fortunate shrub might find itself rehomed in a neighbour’s plot; but more likely, it will be tossed onto the compost heap.
It is a rare and magical thing, therefore, to encounter a plant that not only has a past, but a future. A plant known to our grandparents, that our grandchildren might one day enjoy.
Invaluable to wildlife, trees provide forage and habitat to all manner of life. (Between them, our two native oaks alone support 2,300 different species.) And in our gardens, trees must be the hardest working of all the vegetation, for the privacy they provide; the shade they offer in summer; their oxygenating and carbon sequestering capabilities; not to mention the colour and structure and movement and other designy qualities that they lend to our planting plans.
And yet trees are often overlooked. Unappreciated. Gardening is a busy pursuit; there are always jobs to be done; seeds to sow; weeds to pull; containers to water. The neediest plants – often annuals with months-long lifespans – demand all of our attention. And the grand old trees? Well, we just leave them to it and, in the process, too often take them for granted.
My earliest, fondest memories of spending time in the garden revolve around – or better said, within – a tree. I grew up in a two bedroom first-floor flat in north west London. I was the only child in the building. None of the flats had a garden of their own, but all had access to the building’s large shared garden, at that time lovingly maintained by our upstairs neighbour, a dedicated, green-fingered retiree called Flick (for Felicity).
Flick was the first gardener I ever met. I can’t quite picture her face, or recall what, if anything, she taught me about the garden, apart from that she used to let me water the plants, and that she showed me how, with some careful thumb placement, it was possible to turn the water that gurgled from the end of a hose into a refractive, rainbow mist.
The garden had deep borders on its flanks, with the bulk of what I now understand to be the perennial planting located in the bed closest to the house, which was – and remains – the sunniest spot. At the far end of the garden, in the shadow of the neighbouring block of flats, was a dark, wet, wild area, thick with ivy and brambles, untended by Flick and visited only infrequently by resident children (me), when our (my) imaginative play demanded courage.
But my favourite place in the garden, and the only part I can remember with crystal clarity, was about two thirds of the way back: a somewhat stunted weeping Willow, its foliage hanging in a perfect hemisphere. The tree was small – probably no more than two metres high at its apex – which made it somewhat inaccessible for adults, and a perfect den for a child to feel enveloped by its canopy. I viscerally remember the feeling of peeling back the curtain of drooping branches, and disappearing inside the secret world contained within the sun-dappled dome.
My mum still lives in that flat. The willow tree, however, is long gone. It was sick, supposedly, and had to go. I remember feeling distraught when, returning home during the university holidays, I looked out of the living room window to discover a bare patch of lawn where the tree had stood. It was a shock, a loss, one of those formative, end-of-innocence moments in life, when the world gets hold of a precious childhood memory, scrunches it up into a ball and chucks it back in your face.
Flick wasn’t around to see the tree go. She’d moved out of her flat a few years earlier. I wonder whether, had the building’s only gardener still been around at the time, the fate of that wondrous weeping willow would have been any different.
My wife and I got married in 2017. That same spring, it just so happened that one of the local parks – Leyton Jubilee Park – was in the midst of a big tree-planting drive. The council was inviting local residents to sponsor a sapling. You could choose a tree (from a list of available specimens), pay whatever you felt like or could afford, and provide a dedication to appear on a little plaque inside the park cafe.
The symbolism (roots, growth, longevity), just a few weeks ahead of our nuptials, was too good to pass up. I put our names down, transferred some cash, and provided a dedication. Inspired by childhood memories of my first true tree love, I suggested to my then-fiancée that we sponsor a willow (though not a weeping one, sadly, as none were due to be planted at that time).
That willow tree today is only a few years older than our son. We took him to see it the other day. We happened to be at the park for a free – and extraordinarily cute – ‘Nature Explorers’ session run by The Conservation Volunteers for under 5s. Think big binoculars in little hands, and illustrated bird-spotting checklists. Adorable.
On our way home we stopped by the tree. It hasn’t done much over the past five years, but it’s still there. And I really hope that we can continue to visit the tree in the years to come, and that it’ll continue to just… be there.
It’s a sobering thought that that willow might be there in fact, still offering refuge for birds and insects and curious children, long after my wife and I have shuffled off this mortal coil. And that even after we’re gone, and our worldly possessions have been lost or broken or sold off, and our garden has been replanted or paved over, some meaningful, organic, tangible contribution of ours will remain. Not as a monument to us, or our family, but as a testament to the sheer bloody brilliance of trees.
Are there any especially significant trees in your life? Do you have any fond memories of trees from your past? I’d love to hear about them.
Header image picture credit: Thomas Kinto on Unsplash.
We’ve only got a small yard here in Pittsburgh but I’ve been able to plant two small native trees since we moved in - a red bud and a dogwood. And I’m considering sneaking in one more.
Doug Tallamy’s writings have also really got me excited about trees and all the insect life they support. His last book is all about oak trees! If you haven’t read any of his work, I’d recommend it!
My husband and I planted a peach tree when we moved into our home, in honor of our daughter, who at the time was six months old. The next year my dad, who was mowing our lawn for us, lost control of the riding lawn mower and ran over it 😂 We laugh about it now (and he paid for us to replace it with another peach tree), but wow, was it painful to see our only special tree totally destroyed.
My other special trees are a set of four white pines growing just over our property line, in our neighbor's yard, which I can see from my home office. They are enormous, probably 60 feet tall. When I first started a 12-Step program and was really struggling with the idea of a higher power (I didn't grow up with any specific faith tradition and am not a religious person), I decided just to pray to these beautiful trees. Over time, I sensed that there was a spirit in them that was I was talking to -- an old woman, with long silver hair that she keeps pinned up, wearing a purple tunic. That spirit -- and those trees -- became the God of my understanding. It had (still has) a huge impact on me and I'm deeply grateful.