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The tree officer and the power of life and death

At last, a warm day. I lay outside under a Tree at lunchtime, in a small triangle of greenery we manage, beneath a scarlet oak I decided to fell a few months ago due to the ganoderma fungus fruiting bodies sprouting around the base. There was a breeze, so the sun shone flickering through the leaves as the branches moved. I followed their movement carefully, watching how they dissipated energy in something more like a circular motion than a to-and-fro. The movement of the whole of a crown is a beautifully complex thing to watch: different sections move in different directions at once, a constant swirling in one part of the crown seemingly balanced by a swirling in another.

The tree I was looking up at has been heavily reduced in the past, is no longer beautiful – another reason to remove it, for I really felt the residents deserved a truly impressive tree here. The sooner a new one goes in the better. Due to the crown reduction, the movement of the crown is somewhat diminished, for the solid skeleton of the older part of the tree does not sway in the wind at all, only the newer regrowth. Despite this I enjoyed watching the ceaseless movement, the rippling of light, green, light, green. I idly wondered if the tree shouldn’t get a few more years. If I re-reduce it, everything I am watching move now will be cut off, lost to the chainsaw, but it would mean the tree is less likely to fall over from the fungal decay in its base and roots. It could last a few more years perhaps, even if it will never be a glory of the neighbourhood.

I continue lying there, my mind gradually going blank as I watch the whirlpools of the branches. For a while I am thinking of nothing, and the tree becomes a hundred other trees that I have lain beneath and watched in exactly this way. Planes too move like this, and so do beeches, oaks, limes, horse chestnuts. It is while I am not thinking that my mind changes. The tree will stay, I find myself deciding, if only for a few more years. I’ll call the contractors when I get back to the office.




This post first appeared on Diary Of A Failing Nature Writer, please read the originial post: here

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The tree officer and the power of life and death

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