We were talking about the trees, and dreaming about planting our own little wood some day, and I said: 'What I would really really like is to grow an oak tree'.
So later on I was pottering about getting on with this and that and I heard the thunder of delicate ladylike footsteps on the stairs and excited voices saying 'Come and see! Come and look!'
'What?' said I. 'What have you done? Trapped a badger? Strung up a property speculator?'
'Come and see! Come and see!' was all they would say. So I did.
In our garden you first come to some flower beds and grassy bits where we chill out and play with the Smallest Relative and eat lunch. Then there are the veggie beds (doing very nicely thank you, despite startling extremes of temperature this spring). Then there is the dell, or the meadow, or whatever it is - a little bit of garden at the end, left to be wild, Hebe's domain, where we are making something like a kind of woodland glade with ferns and hawthorn and whatnot. We've transplanted some random bushes that were planted here and there, to make a little hedgerow separating off the meadow from the rest of the garden (I'm making this sound massive - you should know, our garden probably doesn't make it to 100ft long - we pack in a lot, OK?).
And there, at the bottom of the garden beyond the 'hedgerow', just within our little meadow, there is the darlingest little oak tree, newly starting to grow. It came all by itself as a gift from the trees, because they knew we loved them.
And in the flower bed by the wall, a tiny yew tree starting as well.
Now, how cool is that!
I should have taken a photo for you to see - I'll go and take one in the morning, and add it in.
5 comments:
Oak trees require an optimistic heart given they take 100 years+ to grow. And the yew is the druid's tree because it so often suckers in a circle. Fascinating plants in your part of the world & I should probably stop reading the sort of things I read. *sigh*
100 years? I heard an oak tree grows for 300 years, rests for 300 years, and takes 300 years to die. As they die they consume their own selves, and also allow themselves to be colonised by insects, so in their dying they are economically used by the most species for home and food.
The yew is also a holy tree - traditionally it was grown in churchyards as a kind of guardian angel.
:0)
I should be clearer. I meant 100 yrs 4 an oak to reach it's full height. 300? Even more optimism needed. ☺ The druids considered the yew holy too.
I didn't know about the dying. Wow. They made masts from oak. Hard, straight & tall ~ as a mast needs to be.
So exciting!
In their mature stages, many oak trees become hollow. The dead wood in the heart of the tree becomes food for fungi and insects while the live wood around the edge is still living and growing. In the meantime, the hollow makes a home and hiding place for many things, including humans at times! There are trees that have lived like this for hundreds of years.
I will do my best to live as long as I can. Our oak is about three inches tall at present... It's only a newbie. But it looks strong!
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