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NATURE
Who Remembers the Trees?
More to the point, who cares?
The birch tree in the photo above grew naturally in our garden from a tiny seed that found its way into a crevice in the soil down by our greenhouse years ago.
The spindly sapling that sprouted there would have been considered a ‘weed’ by many and pulled up without a second thought. But we have many such ‘weeds’ in our garden — alder, elder, hawthorn, buddleia and some we can’t even name.
In the ecology module of my A-level biology course, we were taught that the definition of a ‘weed’ was ‘a plant in the wrong place’. I remember thinking what a ridiculous definition this was. How could a plant ever be in the ‘wrong’ place? If they’ve seeded there and they’re growing there and they’re doing well, then they’re obviously in just the right place!
It’s only our misguided perception that labels wild plants that are naturally growing on the Earth as wayward, errant or bad.
Of course, we don’t leave them all to grow to full size — some are growing through paving and some even take root in the walls of the house. Obviously, those need to be removed!
But on the whole, we try to keep as many of these little self-sown saplings as possible, either transplanting them into the hedgerow or, like the one…