Gardens
Round in circles
Ursula Buchan
On New Year's Eve, a thousand bea- cons will be lit across the countries of the European Community to celebrate the advent of the Single European Market. What you may not know — and I think you should — is that you can mark this event in a striking and lasting fashion: by planting a tree circle.
The idea is that this circle should be composed of 12 trees — one for every star on the Community flag, as 'a living symbol of European unity'. Notcutts, who are the official Beacon Europe suppliers of trees to the United Kingdom, are selling plants for three sizes of circle. The small circle must be at least eight metres (that's 25 feet in old money, squire) in diameter, the second 14 metres and the third 25 metres. On offer are Prunus 'Amanogawa' or Malus 'May- pole' for the small circle, Acer campestre, Sorbus aucuparia 'Asplenifolia', Was tschonoskii or Pyrus 'Chanticleer' for the medium-sized one, and Fraxinus excelsior, Tilia platyphyllos, Acer platanoides and Prunus avium for the large one. It is antici- pated that the tree canopies would eventu- ally grow to meet each other, in the most painless kind of convergence likely to occur in Europe. Anyone wishing to mark this occasion need not restrict themselves to those kinds of tree, of course, although it does make sense to limit the planting to only one species per circle. It would not be a true symbol of European co-operation, after all, if there were to be two-speed circles, espe- cially if some trees grew at the expense of
others.
The aim of the tree circle idea is to encourage people, and local councils in particular, to mark the historic event with a gesture to show their pride in Euro-citizen- ship. Just picture the excitement generated in the Twinning Sub-Committee of the Amenity and Leisure Committee at the Barchester Town Hall when the matter is discussed: a full-dress tree-planting cere- mony in the Councillor Timeserver Memo- rial People's Park, followed by an all-expenses-paid trip to represent Barch- ester in an identical event in the Swabian town of Himmel-auf-Erde. It would espe- cially appeal because a tree circle consign- ment from Notcutts comes complete with commemorative plaque, thus making the occasion an ideal photo-opportunity for the Barchester Evening Argus.
Far be it from me ever to discourage the planting of trees (especially when this is the first autumn for three years that the ground is soft and moist enough to do so safely), but I think a little thought is need- ed before we commit ourselves, and our gardens, to such an extravagant gesture of solidarity with the European Ideal. It is not that these dozen trees are particularly expensive (including stakes, ties and plaque, between 246 and 376 ecus, depend- ing on the species chosen, exclusive of VAT), but there is an aesthetic difficulty.
I would, frankly, have to be paid a basket of narrow-band ERM currencies to plant twelve 'Maypole' crab apples in my garden, for these are so-called 'Ballerina' trees, which have been developed without sideshoots, so that they look like nothing so much as leafy poles banged unceremoni- ously into the ground. Prunus `Amanogawa' Is almost the ugliest cherry on the market. But even those trees on offer which are handsome, such as the Norway maple, the Callery pear, the broad-leaved lime and the bird cherry, will, in almost every ordinary garden, and probably even in parks, look odd if grown in strictly geometric circles. In woodland, their all-important symbolic cir- cularity would soon become blurred. Only In a formal setting, where they can be used as a means of defining a very large space, bisected by paths, might they look apposite. I know we all yearn to give proper expression to our delight at the prospect of European Union but I do not want my descendants, a hundred years hence when my broad-leaved limes are just maturing into imposing trees, to wonder why there is a rondel in the garden. They will, of course, no longer be living in Northamptonshire, but in Danelaw, a backward sub-region of Prancogermania. What will they think? That the planting of these trees was part of a pagan ritual, perhaps, or, more likely, marked the passing of the multiples of inches, pennies and eggs. Yes, that must be !I. What a sentimental people those Britons' were, with their urge to celebrate every transient and unimportant event in their history!
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