Gardening
Weepers
Denis Wood
Many trees, besides the ordinary shape in which we know them, have as they say in horticultural
terms, thrown sports, upright or fastigiate with a shape approaching that of the Lombardy poplar. Of these, one of the most magnificent is the Dawyck beech, Fagus sylvatica fastigiata, of which there are two good specimens at Wisley. The opposite to the fastigiate is the pendulous, and there is also a weeping beech of which there is more than one kind. This is not the most attractive of the weeping trees, the branches tend to grow almost at right-angles to the trunk and then drop vertically, making a gaunt outline in winter and a rather angular tent in summer. The common ash, Fraxinus excelsior, also exists as a weeping tree, var. pendula, which can grow to considerable height and still weep, but its descending branches are long-jointed, resulting in bare stems between the leaves. The best of all is the weeping Wych elm which has agreeably large leaves, closely draped along its even, downard-curving branches, making an umbrageous tent.
Weeping trees are notoriously difficult to place in the landscape, perhaps because their domed, generally low, almost squat outline is to begin with unfamiliar, and also lacking in height to give contrast with the space around. For some reason which I can only feel but not explain, they seem most acceptable in riverside lawns.
At the water's edge the traditional trees are weeping willows, of which there are several sorts. One frequently seen is Salix babylonica, a native of China, and according to Bean in his Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles, brought here in 1730 by a Mr Vernon, a turkey merchant from Aleppo. He got it from the river Euphrates and planted it in his garden at Twickenham Park. This is the weeping willow which Napoleon loved and under which he was buried at St Helena. Many slips of this tree have been brought to Europe, including this country, and presumably are still to be found. Two among the many other weeping willows are Salix x chrysocoma, said by Hillier to be perhaps the most beautiful, and also the sadly named Sepulcralis, less pendulous than Salix babylonica. The tree of the •salmist, on
to which harps were hung at Babylon, is now thought to have been not a willow but Populus euphrutica, which I cannot find in the catalogues.
A tree which is more pendant than weeping is the glorious silver lime, Titia petiolaris, from Italy, capable of reaching to 80 ft. This does not make a domed tent of foliage from a modest height, but drapes its graceful branches downwards as it makes its stately progress to the sky. In tall, mature specimens, the silver-grey undersides of the leaves are seen. The scent of its flowers in July is deliciously sweet and strong and according again to Bean, the nectar of the flowers is potent and also narcotic, causing bees which have sipped its sweetness to lie in drunken scores beneath the tree. After I had once before written of this I was taken to task by a gallant colonel, who thought that the tree should not be planted where bees were kept because the effect of the nectar was not only narcotic but toxic. This may or may not be so. I have enquired of a learned man who told me that in his opinion the boot was on the other leg, and that the honey from certain flowers, in particular rhododendrons, was toxic to man and cited the case of men of Keno-. phon's army retreating from the seige of Babylon in 401 BC and who, having eaten honey, behaved in the same way as bees are reported to do after drinking at the weeping silver lime,
Previous page
