Moving Dad's Walnut Tree

The sack barrow discovered in dad's garage definitely helped me and my sister as we moved the large chunk of walnut tree from the garden, through the house and into the boot of my car. Our parents lived in the same house all their married lives, over 60 years. Dad had planted the walnut tree at the end of the garden when they first moved there and it was special. It always seemed enormous to me. Thinking about it, at first it can't have been so very big but I was very small and then as an adult, it was very big!

Throughout our childhood, dad would tell us stories of Horatio, the elf who lived in the tree. I have one strong childhood memory of a bumper year of walnuts, a wheelbarrow full of them but the reality was if you wanted walnuts, you probably had to buy them. Dad and the squirrel had an ongoing battle every year and the squirrel always won! In the end dad took to making pickled walnuts, collecting them when the skin is still soft.

Dad died in 2017 and the walnut tree died too. Maybe it was the result of some hard pruning, it had become very large. Last year the tree fell. It made a bit of a mess of the neighbour's fence and we had to cut it into large chunks. A couple of them went into the garage, my mum hoping it might be possible to find a wood turner who could make something from them and the rest stayed in the garden, until now.

For the past two years I have been making a podcast called Our Plant Stories. As a former BBC radio producer I have always been passionate about audio and storytelling. My other love was always plants. So this podcast combines those passions. Whilst still at the BBC I'd studied for my RHS Level 2, part time in the Regent's Park campus of Capel Manor. I think what this gave me was the language to talk to growers and horticulturists. So for the podcast I find people's stories about plants and I have found that plants tell great stories; about the people who grew them, the places we find them and the reasons we love them.

I then find someone who shares the passion for that plant and we have a conversation. We end by learning how to grow it.

The plant story

So how does a chunk of walnut fit into this format? Well this month I shared the story of Lucy and The Weed Trust. Aged just 6, one summer Lucy set to designing a logo and a newsletter and a welcome pack for the flowers she thought were unloved. Her mum and her mum's best friend joined The Weed Trust! Lucy was also fascinated by the small creatures in the garden; the ants, the bees and beetles, the woodlice. She thought everyone should have a few woodlice in their coat pocket. Now in her twenties, she is an urban ecologist.

The conversation

For our conversation we went to the Eden Nature Garden in Clapham to meet Benny Hawkesbee, who describes himself as a wildlife gardener. Greeting Benny in his fabulous dandelion print t-shirt, I knew she had found a friend.

It was so lovely to hear Lucy's squeal of delight as Benny gently lifted a piece of wood covered in fungus to reveal beetles and tiny frogs. The piece of wood was from a Turkey oak that had fallen in the garden. The gardeners had pleaded to keep as much of the standing trunk as possible and saved other pieces from woodchip, placing them instead, in the garden.

How to grow

When I asked Lucy the 'how to grow' question that I always ask at the end of each plant story, I was slightly curious as to which 'weed' of the many we had seen she would choose.

It might be a bit abstract but fungus, you know as an ode to that grub that I saw and I squealed and I grabbed because I loved it so much under that tree stump.  You know there's so much life there.  So stick a tree stump or a lump of wood in a green space and let the fungi grow and let the wood decay.  Maybe it's the opposite of growing you know. let it die and decay and see what happens. Does that work?          - Lucy

Standing in that garden I found myself saying: "I do have a lump of wood".

In the early morning light my chunk of dad's walnut tree positively glows. I love it and I think dad would be pleased that I have it. I fear Horatio had to relocate a few years ago but who knows, maybe his spirit is with dads in that much loved walnut tree.

Ps I came down this morning to make my early morning cup of tea and found the squirrel sitting on Dad's chunk of walnut tree - reunited!