On 6/12/06 00:02, in article
, "Farm1"
please@askifyouwannaknow wrote:

"K" wrote in message
Sacha writes
On 4/12/06 18:35, in article ,
"K"
wrote:

"Rupert (W.Yorkshire)" writes
I am probably the odd one out but I see nothing wrong with
planting a
tree you like and accepting that it will have to be removed long
before
maturity. There are plenty of wonderful examples of Araucaria
around
here which will eventually have to go. Even the most modest
British
trees are probably unsuitable for the average garden but they do
enjoy
a 20/30 year life before the chop. Must go now -I need to check
the
Sequoia:-)

No, you're not. I've argued this line on urg before.

I don't see it's much different from growing hedges - better,
perhaps,
to let a tree have a few years of freedom, than to keep it
'cooped up'
at 6ft high for ever ;-)

Why grow it at all, if only for personally selfish reasons?

Why else are any plants grown that aren't being grown for food or
utility? Or do you mean that we grow our gardens to create a thing
of
beauty for others to enjoy? If so, why not grow a tree for the same
reason, even if it has to be removed after 20 years or so when it
outgrows its space?

Given the range of trees of all shapes and sizes available then that
sounds to me more like poor planning (but that comment should be read
in context with comments that follow).

I'd agree with you but at the same time I can see Kay's point but I simply
cannot agree with it. It's too callous for me!

We should also take account of gardener's ignorance and some gardeners
simply plant in ignorance of eventual size. Also some gardeners are
very subject to garden fashions that come and go and plant for the
short term.

I think quite a lot of people plant trees because a friend has one or
they've seen it somewhere in a much larger garden and want one themselves.
In my old house there was a young blue cedar and I had the horrible job of
cutting it down because it was much too close to the house and when it was
fully size, would have prevented anyone getting to the front door! That had
been planted because the people next door had a much larger garden and had a
blue cedar planted well away from the house but in line of sight with mine.
I can only imagine that the original planter thought that two such trees
fairly close together would one day look magnificent. But their thinking
obviously hadn't gone further than that.

And of course given that some gardeners only have a pocket hankerchief
sized garden then they have more desire to fiddle and change things as
they have less work to do and more chance of getting bored than those
who have a big garden.

I suspect that Sacha and I both have large gardens and that changes
one's focus dramatically. It's all about the long term in a big
garden as one doesn't have the time, resources or energy to do
gardening that has a short term life and that especially includes tree
planting. In a big garden you simply can't keep redoing things all
the time.

Again, I think that's true and not something I'd consciously thought of. We
have roughly 3 acres of garden here and 3 of nursery. It's impossible to
keep titivating the garden in a minute detail sort of way, so I suppose we
do tend to think in terms of permanence. Apart from my last garden which was
the smallest I've ever owned, I've always been involved with big gardens, so
perhaps that has influenced my thinking in terms of the life of anything in
them.

Trees are not animals in the sense of allowing
them 'a few years of freedom'.

Precisely. Which is why I find it hard to get worked up about
planting
trees to 'selfish' reasons. Is it possible to be selfish if the only
ill
effects of your 'selfishness' are on a non-sentient being?

Many trees live for a very, very much longer
time than any animal, including the human and IMO, should be
planted with
that in mind.

IMO, too, but from a different perspective.

I think your splitting up of Sacha's comments has removed the overall
sense of what she wrote. I'm of the view of Sacha, but I don't own a
pocket handkerchief sized garden and nor can I plant a certain class
of tree without being aware that it will grow into a truly huge thing.
I can plant pioneer and nursery species but I don't plant for fashion.
I plant certain trees with the reasoning that I am planting for what I
describe as "posterity". This means to me that the tree will still be
there in a hundred or more years.

Yup.

More years ago than I care to remember, I came across a Japanese Haiku
which best describes my attitude to the non nursery trees and although
I can no longer put it into the correct Haiku form, it says:

"A a man truly understands the meaning of life when he plants a tree
under which he knows he will not sit".

Having had 2 bouts of primary cancer, I asked myself at one stage, if
money was no object, what would be the last thing that I would want to
do on earth before dying.

I decided that the only thing I would REALLY want to do, would be to
buy a large parcel of land, to plant an arboretum and to then protect
the land by some sort of covenant so that it could never be be subject
to human interference. Like the man in the Haiku, I know I'm not
immortal, but certain trees for me have an immortality that is truly
magical. The Druids certainly knew a thing or two.

Lovely idea. A fairly close neighbour has done something similar and it's
known locally as 'the plantation'. I don't know about the covenant thing in
his case but it's a marvellous thing to do for future generations to enjoy.
In a smaller way, we do the same thing. Having acquired the field behind
what used to be the boundary of the nursery, Ray turned part of it into a
badly-needed car park and another part is covered in Mypex for the outdoor
potted up plants. But the rest is grassland and my stepson has planted an
avenue of different types of oaks in it and at right angles to that we put
in an avenue of limes about two years ago. In other parts of the field
there many other types of tree dotted around here and there and though we
can't allow it to turn into a wild flower meadow unfortunately, it is a real
wildlife and bird haven and last year we even had a family of ferrets
nesting in the vast compost heap up there!

--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
http://www.discoverdartmoor.co.uk/