AN R IN THE MONTH

Next month there will be an R in the month again. Which makes it the right time to think about planting more trees.

Here's what we've planted at Laytham so far:

Oak approx. 40
Chestnut 1
Cherry 16
Apple 6
Mulberry 2
Copper Beech 1
Silver Birch 3
Willow 2
Gage 1
Plum 2
Walnut 1
Hawthorn 1

All, with the possible exception of the walnut, are thriving. I think the walnut has too much competition. I may have to move it.

There are three especially fine trees absolutely shooting up too. But I didn't plant them. They just appeared. Two are grey poplars, offspring of the huge tree that skirts the old moat. They shimmer most beautifully in the wind and make a lovely calming noise. Trees are therapeutic that way. They say that if you have a headache, go and sit under a willow for an hour. Your headache will go. I quite believe it. And it would not surprise me if the poplars are equally healing. The third tree is a sycamore. But I think that won't survive. Where it is, it is jostled and pushed about by the poplar brothers. And, despite their calm exterior, they are hard men, not to argue with. I found this out when I tried to remove another of their brethren, first with a machete, then with a lopping saw, and eventually with a big bush saw. Made me sweat, the bastard.

Come next month, I'll have a shopping list. Topping it will be one or more horse chestnuts, which, like the copper beech, should grow on the east side of the house to be magnificent and huge trees, long after I become tree myself. And a couple of willows, to soak up the paddock's deepest furrow in its ancient ridge and furrow structure. I'm tempted by a pine or two. But there again, I'm not sure. They seem somehow a bit middle class, and I'm terribly snobby about that. Someone suggested a Eucalyptus. Never.

I have kids. I may one day write a work of genius. I doubt that. Apart from these things, what greater legacy can there be than planting trees?