Ashes to Ash (From The Argus)

Ashes to Ash

12:10pm Wednesday 1st December 2010

• Print
• Email
• Comments(4)

The new 2010 allotment rules specify that no tree may be higher than 2m on any allotment site. Does this mean that the grace and splendour of our shapely trees will be lost?

The major meeting at the Weald Allotment site on Tuesday, December 7 may give the answers.

Allotment Rules OK?

There was considerable controversy when the new allotment regulations were adopted earlier this year, without effective consultation and certainly without effective representation. (See my post Nature's rules OK?). The rules make draconian reading and if implemented would devastate the joys of the Weald site and its environmental heritage, as a haven for wild birds and rare apples trees.

Sense and Sensibility

Fortunately good sense has prevailed to date and no demands have been made to remove 4m high apple trees that adorn many allotments.This year they provided such an abundance of glorious fruit that I will be eating the late ripening Rosemary Russets and Ashmead Kernels well into the new year. The Ash remains home for the marauding magpies, while sometimes sparrow hawks swoop from above these stately trees. The Hazel hedges harbour winter insects on their soft and shapely catkins. Yes be sensible: cut down sycamore saplings but not our heritage.

Stand and Discover

Will this sensitivity remain? Or will the rules be used in an arbitrary way against some transgressor that crosses the path of officialdom in some other way? Those who have travelled know how bureaucracies everywhere make fools of the rule of law by promoting some and ignoring others. It depends on who the person is, what their affiliation is and whether they have been “difficult”.

My Discovery apple tree, planted a decade ago, must be four metres high and its delicious fruit provides an abundant crop, so much more than could be provided by the land that it shades. To date good sense has prevailed, let’s make sure this continues.

Oranges are not the only Fruit.

I adore the sculptural shape of tree, the sound of wind rustling in their branches, the texture of weathered trunks, the colours of cool catkins and the evening yellowing light on the leaves.

What M 27 dwarf rooting stock, sounding like a motorway, stunted at two metres, can give such diversity and such delight to so many?

Let’s celebrate our diamonds in the sky with Lottie.

Readers who submit articles must agree to our terms of use. The content is the sole responsibility of the contributor and is unmoderated. But we will react if anything that breaks the rules comes to our attention. If you wish to complain about this article, contact us here