The Magic of Nature: an Understatement of Elders

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Artwork, eldertree, illustration, Nature, nature writing, Trees

Elders are often so small and scrubby, they hardly seem worth the name tree at all. They may grow to about 20 feet (6 metres), but so often they don’t. Definitely an understated tree.

The first elder I remember meeting was a scrubby little thing with its roots and trunk entangled in a ruined wall. I got to know it well one winter when my parents had taken the family boat, a little cabin cruiser, out of the water for a refit. The boat was parked opposite the elder, so my gaze ran over the tree every time we visited. The trunk was gnarled, and bore patches of pale-green lichen – quite a welcome splash of colour at that dull season. In January, I noticed more pale green than had been there before, so I took a closer look. Not more lichen, though – the tree was unfolding leaf-buds. In February that year it snowed. Frost sat on the riverside meadows, and icicles hung from the boat’s side, but the elder tree seemed unperturbed, kept its part-unfolded leaves in suspended animation, and picked up where it had left off when the weather improved to become the first tree in full leaf. You can’t help but respect a plant that does that.

Later that little elder put out flowerheads, too. They are saucer-sized, so you wouldn’t expect much understatement in that, but they are a modest cream colour, large but soft-toned. The fruits are purple-black, a little more showy, I suppose, and my chief memory of them is gathering bucketsful beside an old gravel-pit by the Thames to make elderberry wine. Heady stuff, it was, and not understated at all.

These days, the elder I visit most often is another scrubby little plant. It stands in a ditch half-way across the causeway between the Isle of Portland and the mainland. This Dorset elder has a lot of weather to contend with, exposed to salt gales from both east and west. A salty summer gale can blacken its leaves so they drop in despair. But new buds soon swing into action – this is a very tough little tree. I would say it’s about as tall as I am; any attempt to put its head above the parapet of the ditch gets dried, snapped and blown away. Some years it even manages to flower, though I’ve never seen any fruit on it. It keeps trying, I suppose, the occasional flowers a triumph of hope over experience. One day, perhaps, it will bear fruit and I shall congratulate it on an achievement against all the odds. Nature, I guess, can give us a lesson or two about not giving up too easily.

My illustrated, magical, nature-inspired tales The Herbarium, The Chesil Apothecary and Dropwort Hall are available from www.veneficiapublications.com

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Green Shoots

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illustration, Stourhead Gardens, Trees, writing

It must win a prize for the most-asked question on social media just now: what have you missed most during lockdown? Me? Well, it goes without saying that I’ve missed my family, but beyond that what I missed was trees.

There are trees here on the coast where I live, and I was delighted to see some of them on my daily walks, but the sea-winds tend to keep them short and stunted. What I longed for were forest trees, great big sky-scraping trees with broad canopies and lots and lots of green. When lockdown restrictions eased and I was able to take country walks and start visiting the big local gardens again, it was the trees that stopped me in my tracks. I just couldn’t get enough of them.

So when I found myself at Stourhead Gardens – a tree-lovers paradise if ever there was one – I was a very happy bunny indeed. I was there to meet my daughter for the first time in months, so it was already a joyful occasion. As I stood with my mouth open gazing up into the branches of a huge tree, she read my thoughts.

‘What’s your favourite kind of tree, Mum?’

‘Beech,’ I said.

‘Me, too. Reminds me of White Downs.’

This was a place on the Surrey Downs we visited often in her childhood, and we spent many happy hours looking for orchids in the shades of the giant beeches there. I’m glad she remembers it fondly. But then she took me by surprise. ‘Why don’t you do a book on trees, Mum?’

Well, given what I said on this blog last week about shiny new projects being the best way to ensure you never finish the current work-in-progress, I should have said ‘nice idea’ and left it that. Should have – but instead I said, ‘Go on…’ and we talked about it.

By the end of a day spent looking at the magnificent trees of Stourhead, the idea had, um, taken root. The magic of trees. Tree magic. Something like that. Illustrated by the author. I can do that. What fun the research would be; the perfect excuse to lurk about holding intense conversations with giant plants. I’d love it.

It’s the kind of idea that needs to marinate for a while. But isn’t it good, after lockdown when all bets were off and all future plans on indefinite hold, to have a few green shoots sprouting again? Thank you, dear daughter, for that.