Look up in the city and you won't always see a specimen as magnificent as this one. But you will often see a tree. Our native state is woodland; scrub woodland on the moors, bog woodland by the rivers, and everywhere else, temperate woodland; mostly deciduous but with an evergreen scatter; just enough pine to keep that mixed forest ecosystem ticking over, a home for goldcrests and hibernating insects, like this one:
These are not the same trees, though I appreciate the illusion! This continuation is the base of a London Plane, assimilating the pavement. There's been some sort or thought about containing this wood waterfall, but its come adrift. The tree is breaking its bounds, smashing its box, discriminating wildly against mobility buggies and pushchairs. The pavement's pretty wide at this point though, so all is probably fine.
Less so here. I've had some things in pots for nine years now, and they've started to turn to native scrub, sprouting Goat Willow, Sucker Ash, Hazel, Lime, Douglas Fir and Pine. But this Willow - Crack or Silver, not sure which - has sprouted in a tiny pocket of polluted street dirt halfway up a building, making it the boldest pioneer on the High Street at the moment..
Turn your back for a few years and the trees return, with leaves that make soil and roots that make rubble, blurring and erasing with lines of messy green.
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