Figure 8: The Power of Togetherness. This is probably
the most extreme "unlikely recovery" that I have recorded
with photos, and I wish I had been wise enough to have
taken an intermediate image to produce a triptych for
this one. Sadly, the idea of recording trees changing
over time had not occurred to me at that stage.
Here, a young elm (Ulmus x hollandica 'Lobel') planted
at my College was vandalized by a set of sports students
(let's not go there in terms of the average IQ of a sports
student!), so its stem was snapped at about three feet
above the ground. Knowing what I know about the ability
of elms to re-sprout and recover, I pruned off the torn end
of this stem and allowed it to re-grow in situ for a couple
of years. It then took three "doses" of formative pruning
to get the tree back to having one main leader and a
good distribution of branches for this roadside setting.
It's quite common for urban foresters to dig out snapped
trees and start again—but the careful use of a pair of
secateurs and a handsaw can aid the restructuring of such
a tree back to a good shape; removal is often unnecessary.
Indeed, I have pruned some young trees into a good
shape by simply pinching off shoots and directing a tree's
growth with nothing more sophisticated than my thumbnail
pincered against the fingernail of my index finger: nip, nip!
Trees are highly evolved and inspiring organisms. What is
more, they do not give you back-chat or interrupt you when
you are listening to your favorite radio show or watching
a film. That is why my best friends are all trees: we rub
along together well. Some trees have amazing stories to
tell—only they cannot articulate those stories themselves,
so I owe it to my beautiful and "giving" friends to help get
their stories told. My Trees over Time project is very much
about telling those stories through pictures; I hope you
enjoyed this short selection. With best wishes, Duncan.
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