When the trees fell

My mother tells me the first word I uttered was “tree”. She says it was because she would wheel me about in my pram on walks in our neighbourhood when, prone as I was, all I could see were the branches of the local beeches and oaks.

Three huge trees grew at the end of our road. They were perfectly formed with symmetrical branches and a rounded crown – the kind of tree I drew at school. I loved them.

So when the Great Storm blew through southern England with hurricane-force winds in 1987 and knocked them over along with 15 million others, I was devastated.

One of the trees had crashed through a fence and onto the roof of a house. I was 16 and it was my first taste of adulthood.

White pine

Some of the most poignant conversations I have with clients are about trees. Often all that’s left is a stump, where an old, diseased white pine had to be cut down. Or there’s the guilty sadness of trees that were removed to make way for a new cottage.

These trees gave shade, framed the view and were good friends the homeowner had grown up with. So the conversation begins: how can they be replaced?

Oak

The park-like landscapes of Capability Brown in Britain feature majestic trees. Brown, in a reaction to the garden design of the past, re-created “natural” landscapes, with wide grassy vistas, punctuated with specimen trees and whimsical buildings.

I visited these landscapes as a child – Blenheim Palace, Harewood House, Chatsworth – and remember learning how Brown was planting for the future. He would never see what the little oaks would become. But he could imagine it.

Spruce

I visited a client’s cottage the other week. His family had lived on the lake for generations – the first family to set up home there.

He had pictures of how it used to be and he pointed out the young spruce in the black-and-white photos. They were still there: standing tall like they owned the place. Because they kind of did.

Sycamore

In the north of England, along Hadrian’s Wall, is a place called Sycamore Gap. It’s where two hills almost meet, leaving a valley in between. And in the middle a single specimen tree. A sycamore. It was an image my father, who was born not far away, grew up with.

Then three years ago two men cut the tree down for a laugh. The people who lived close by were devastated. So was the rest of the nation. The vandals were put in jail for more than four years.

Birch

I visited a client the other day who had some beautiful paper birches along his shoreline. But birches don’t live very long and they were showing signs of ill health.

My client was thinking of succession, of what comes next. Should he plant some trees now so they would take over when the birches were dead? A bare shore was almost unthinkable.

Walnut

A few years ago, I planted some trees around my home: willows and a tamarack for the wet areas, oaks for wildlife.

I also added some black walnut – a tree suited to south of here. I was thinking of what’s to come as our climate warms.