Tree devotion

I have never written much about the one-acre shaw of native trees I planted in 1994, even though it is the delight of my heart, especially when the wild cherries flame in autumn. That’s because I am well aware that en masse tree-planting is a niche activity, open only to the fortunate few. But no one can have envied Thomas Pakenham when, in 1961, he unexpectedly inherited Tullynally Castle in County Westmeath in central Ireland, with its 1,500-acre ‘demesne’ — a third of it park and garden — since he was heavily burdened with death duties. It took nearly 30 years to pay off the debts, before he could begin to concentrate on the delight of his heart, which is planting, caring for and observing the ways of trees as well as travelling the world to look at them.

Before this book, the founder of the Irish Tree Society had published three books on trees that were outstanding for their height, girth, longevity or picturesque history; best known is Meetings with Remarkable Trees, published in 1996. The present book is an account of his encounters with trees, both home and abroad, during 2013 (with some harking back), and it should appeal to those tree-enthusiasts for whom size and age are not everything.

Pakenham is a historian, author of well-regarded histories of the Boer war, the scramble for Africa and the Irish rebellion of 1798. Historians make very good tree people because they respect both the past, with its particular and changing atmospheres, as well as posterity. After all, most trees span more than one human lifetime, and the story of trees has often been part of the story of the land and even the people. And historians can salt the worthy fare of plant descriptions with tales of plant hunters and gardeners from the past.