Around 70 years ago my dad worked for the Forestry Commission planting trees in North Staffordshire. This post-war planting of conifers for timber in place of the ancient broad-leafed woodland was widespread but his patch was Hanchurch Woods or simply 'the forest' as we have always known it. This is a sprawling area of hilly woodland interspersed with fields and hedgerows, home to pines, spruce, larch and of course the ubiquitous silver birch along with the remaining oaks and other deciduous species. I'm sure the work was physically hard but I never heard dad mention that; he was a young, fit man and couldn't have been happier than spending his days out in the fresh air in the company of the birds and wildlife about which he was so passionate. He knew every inch of those woods, every rabbit warren, owls' nest and squirrels' dray, where the fallow deer crossed the tracks leaving tufts of wiry hair on the barbed wire fence, where to dig for pig-nuts and where we could find holly with berries at Christmas. We grew up following his long confident strides around the woods, down sandy tracks littered with smooth round pebbles (marvelling that this had once been the seabed), along grassy rides beneath swaying trees, picking bilberries in summer and following animal tracks in winter. Sometimes we would listen for owls at dusk feeling excited but also pleasantly nervous about being out in the wood as night closed in, wrapping us in a darkening blanket of chilly air and the dashing by of bats. We went there at dawn too, on frosty mornings as the world was waking up to find itself glistening with icy crystals reflecting the pale winter sunlight. It was easy to imagine the nocturnal activities of the badger, fox and other small mammals when we found evidence of their feasting, their chasing and their dying. I once dropped my woolly hat down a badger's sett and we always wondered what the poor badgers made of the black and white striped Port Vale Football Club bobble hat which was full of fir cones I'd been collecting!
At some point on one of these visits to the forest around 40 years ago we found a tiny self-set larch tree pushing its way up through the rich loamy soil on the edge of a plantation where just enough light penetrated the dark canopy. We carefully dug up this specimen, the offspring of a tree planted by dad we liked to think, took it home and planted it among the shrubs alongside our drive where it grew slowly from its original 6 inches (maybe mum nurtured it in a pot for a while, I don't remember but I always remembered the day we found it).
Anyway, there it stayed until I finally had a garden of my own with space for a tree. In 2002 when Nick and I bought our second house, 'Dragons', mum and dad dug up the larch tree, now about 5 feet tall, and we found a place for it in a gap in our leylandii hedge. This wasn't an ideal spot for it as the hedge greedily took any available moisture leaving little for the poor larch which meant that it hardly grew at all in the four years we lived there! In hindsight this was a blessing in disguise as it meant that we were able to bring the tree to Exmoor with us where it spent a year in a pot where its cramped roots meant that it still didn't grow until we bought our current house and my beloved larch found its forever home.
Eleven years on and that once spindly little sapling is 30 feet tall with a strong trunk covered in lichens and mosses and a wide healthy canopy spreading in all directions, low branches tickling the ground and the highest ones swaying in the wind. It can't be moved now, its roots are deep and wide and it belongs here thriving in the Simonsbath soil. The goldfinches feast on its sweet pink cones and our flock of resident sparrows fill its branches, squabbling and gossiping from dawn to dusk. Surrounded by mature trees on all sides it truly feels like part of the landscape now but we are moving soon and I have to say goodbye to this most special tree that has been in my life since I was a little girl kicking through the fallen larch needles of the forest. It has quietly watched me grow up, maybe missed me in the 14 years we were apart, it has given shade and shelter to our chickens as well as the birds and wildlife of our various gardens. It was helped on its way to greatness by some of my dad's ashes scattered beneath it when he died almost 7 years ago. The majority of his ashes have gone back to the earth in 'the forest' at Hanchurch of course. All those years ago when dad worked there he made a lifelong friend in Eph Dyke who farmed the land adjacent to the forest for the rest of his long life. His son George lives there still, has raised his family there and now sees his grandchildren explore the forest, the fourth generation of his family to love that land. On a summer day in 2012 our family walked into the forest to scatter dad's ashes knowing George and some of his family would meet us there. What we didn't know was that he had hewn a huge log into a simple bench and his daughter had engraved dad's name into it. Since then this log seat has become part of the woodland, greening with algae and moss, carved into by young lovers, rested upon by weary walkers and an old friend even hung bird feeders around it so that dad would always have his beloved birds around him.So we will always know where dad is and I guess I will always know where my larch tree is and whenever I drive past this garden I will be able to see its uppermost branches reaching skywards.
A few years ago when my tree was still trapped in the leylandii desert and it was hard to imagine that it would ever grow, we travelled to Scotland and visited a famous larch tree. This tree in Dunkeld is known as The Parent Larch. It is the sole survivor of five larches brought to Scotland from the Austrian Tyrol over 250 years ago and made famous as the seed source for the extensive planting that took place across the Perthshire hillsides in the 18th and 19th centuries. These five trees gave life to 14 million larch trees which served to stabilize the soil of these hills which were not fit for farming and create a rich habitat for wildlife that still flourishes today. The Parent Larch is a beautiful tree, now around 275 years old, with a distinctive huge low branch that extends horizontally from the trunk before turning upwards through ninety degrees resembling a strong arm held proudly aloft. It exudes an air of calm, its work is done and it can rest easy, proud of what it has achieved.
I would love my larch to produce seeds to carry on its lineage but its cones are few and far between and unlikely to germinate as there are no other larches nearby. However, I have recently learnt that it is possible to take cuttings from a larch so that is my plan, to grow more trees from my own 'parent larch'. I don't know how easy this is to do but I figure this is a pretty tough specimen; not only did it grow from seed without support on the forest floor which is quite an achievement in itself but it has also survived two journeys of over 200 miles, lived in dry and cramped conditions for several years and not been beaten by the harsh weather of Exmoor. I am hopeful that we can nurture a few offspring from this offspring of my dad's trees which he loved until the day he died. I feel that would be a fitting tribute to the man who planted trees...
