Back in 2004 I, along with an assorted array of designers, was asked by the magazine, Garden Design Journal to describe our notion of a garden. I showed this…
This is my daughter with a 200-year-old sweet chestnut tree in our garden.
I wrote this for the magazine…
My work is about communicating ideas and information. A large part of which ends up on printed paper, and as everyone knows paper is made from trees. When I visited what was now my house, the first thing I noticed, after the house itself, was the tree. A sweet chestnut; its branches reaching high into the sky. I fell in love with it. Six years on and both the house and tree are mine. But I know really that I belong to the tree, which has presided over this place for over 200 years.
If a tree can make a garden, then I have the perfect garden. With it comes a magnificent 365 day-a-year display. In winter I marvel at its extraordinary twisted trunk. It is always last to fully leaf in summer, its branches laden with lush foliage acting as a welcome shade from the midday sun. My children swing from a sturdy branch; run around its wide girth, or sit against its gnarled truck singing songs. The autumn winds sing through the auburn leaves. And a harvest of sweet chestnuts fall to the ground and are collected – later to end up accompanying the Christmas turkey.
The tree has witnessed many events and families in its long life: horse-drawn carriages dropping off guests for a candle-lit supper; a Daimler hearse transporting a past owner to their final resting place; the arrival of the army in1937, which seconded the house and garden for the duration of the war. Everything has changed around the tree, but it remains proud and erect giving shelter to owls, squirrels and deer. It stands quietly as life and time pass by. My life is inextricably linked with the tree, in more ways than one. Every garden needs a tree.
Postscript: Little did I know that just two years after writing the above I would be leaving that tree forever. A bitter divorce and the tree witnessed me driving away for the last time. And do you known, I miss that gentle billowing mass of emerald green more than the sixteen years I spent at the house. In the end, it’s always people that let you down. Trees just give pleasure.
So I now have a new tree. This one…
An oak. It’s not really mine of course. I’ve adopted it over the past two years. I pass it regularly on my journey to Dorset. It has become very special. It stands majestically at the top of a field. For me, it is a marker for the seasons and time passing. It will soon change its clothing to a golden cloak. Later that will be shed leaving a stark skeleton, silhouetted against the chill winter sky. It will quietly sleep until awakened by the warmth of the late March sun. Fresh buds will appear and the cycle of life will start over again. I will post pictures of its progress over the coming year for you all to see.