Trees
‘The trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit.’ I doubt very much that Molière was thinking of the unwanted self-seeding sycamores sprouting at the bottom of my garden when he wrote this line. However, it is difficult to make an argument for the removal of trees when we are down to the last 12 per cent of our natural woodland.
Speckled Wood, a last gasp of fresh air in the rapidly developing sprawl of the town, is one of the latest spots to come under the environmental spotlight. Do people have the right to have a wood at the bottom of their road? According to the Friends of Speckled Wood and the 2,000 signatures collected, yes they do.
The wood currently provides a much-needed nature reserve for the people and school children of the village of Ore (What!). And a haven for wildlife. Oaks, beeches, blueberry bushes, wetland pathways. It’s difficult not to support their argument. But this is prime real estate, and the country faces an acute housing crisis. Developers have been circling for years, bulldozers at the ready, keen to level the area, cut down the trees and replace them with streets named in their honour. But a tarmac covered Beech Drive doesn’t hold the same appeal as its namesake.
Rock House has no interesting trees. There was an orchard at one point, I can see the remnants of some apple trees in a neighbouring garden, but that larger plot was sold off long ago and now all that is left is this clutch of rather determined teenage sycamores. The received wisdom is to murder them with poison. Or be very vigilant about pulling up their roots as soon as you see their heads poking up. But what of the ones that belong to someone else but are growing so close to your house that they threaten to cut out the light?
Night raids with a machete are not legally (or morally) advisable. Nor is firing rusty nails soaked in pesticide into their sap-filled trunks. So I pray for high winds. It could be worse, as Sarah Langton- Lockton will explain in her gardening column next week. It could have Japanese knotweed. This pernicious weed can render your land worthless. It’s something the Friends of Speckled Wood might consider suddenly ‘discovering’ in the undergrowth.
Next week: Woodlice invasion
Speckled Wood, a last gasp of fresh air in the rapidly developing sprawl of the town, is one of the latest spots to come under the environmental spotlight. Do people have the right to have a wood at the bottom of their road? According to the Friends of Speckled Wood and the 2,000 signatures collected, yes they do.
The wood currently provides a much-needed nature reserve for the people and school children of the village of Ore (What!). And a haven for wildlife. Oaks, beeches, blueberry bushes, wetland pathways. It’s difficult not to support their argument. But this is prime real estate, and the country faces an acute housing crisis. Developers have been circling for years, bulldozers at the ready, keen to level the area, cut down the trees and replace them with streets named in their honour. But a tarmac covered Beech Drive doesn’t hold the same appeal as its namesake.
Rock House has no interesting trees. There was an orchard at one point, I can see the remnants of some apple trees in a neighbouring garden, but that larger plot was sold off long ago and now all that is left is this clutch of rather determined teenage sycamores. The received wisdom is to murder them with poison. Or be very vigilant about pulling up their roots as soon as you see their heads poking up. But what of the ones that belong to someone else but are growing so close to your house that they threaten to cut out the light?
Night raids with a machete are not legally (or morally) advisable. Nor is firing rusty nails soaked in pesticide into their sap-filled trunks. So I pray for high winds. It could be worse, as Sarah Langton- Lockton will explain in her gardening column next week. It could have Japanese knotweed. This pernicious weed can render your land worthless. It’s something the Friends of Speckled Wood might consider suddenly ‘discovering’ in the undergrowth.
Next week: Woodlice invasion