Volunteer trees

Any garden full of plants is a delight. Our garden was full of shrubs familiar and unfamiliar. The large shrubberies and our lack of weeding had created safe spaces for volunteer plants to become established. Rather like they would in a woodland edge. We had enjoyed trying to recognise them. But when we asked a different question. What does it do? The answers were surprising and began to open our eyes to what the garden already knew.

There is an old rowan tree between two beech trees. I think it predates the garden. It’s berries feed the birds and the seeds when dropped in the garden germinate quickly into a myriad of saplings. My mother used to say, “ that’s a rowan, you don’t want it there”. It wasn’t that she didn’t value them. Right plant wrong place! She dug them up and turned them into bonsai trees. I still have one surviving in a pot. So I sometimes dug them out or more often clipped the top off young rowan trees so they didn’t grow too tall. They kept growing and I learned how beautiful they are. First their leaves against a blue sky and their gorgeous orange then red berries in the autumn.

A whole new relationship developed with the Rowan when I first made rowan jelly. It’s so tasty with cheese and full of health benefits. We now let some grow, transplant some into hedges and collect the berries the minute the birds tell us they are ready.

A similar process happened with the hawthorn. We added them to hedges as a native and good for wildlife. Then we made hawthorn ketchup. So gorgeous and good for the heart. Every berry and every drop became precious and we began to see the tree a giver of gifts. The relationship with food changes when you’ve watched it grow, foraged and prepared it. It feels like a gift and of so much more value than a bought one. You feel gratitude to the trees that have come to your garden and offered you food and medicine.