Tree as Furniture

There’s a little wood nestling by the River Tay that I love to walk in, partly for its vibrant and eclectic flora – an amalgam of native plants and garden escapes which get washed in when the river gets out and established over centuries, that curiously resembles my garden at times.

Set back from the river, and maybe in a sort of line, are some colossal and ancient beech trees. Why they are there is a mystery. Clearly, as non-natives, they were planted, possibly something to do with the nearby castle, though they look older than that. I’d like to link them to the mediaeval abbey at Dunkeld, whose land I believe this once was, though there is the small matter of a river in the way.

The trees were clearly pollarded or even coppiced, the resulting shoots from the trunk growing into valuable, renewable firewood. Now each “shoot” forms a huge trunk in itself, because they’ve not been cut back for centuries. This leaves the structure unstable, and every so often a tree loses one or more of its trunks, leaving hollows and torn timber crags. The exuberant flowers and grasses of the wood quickly colonise and make them into miniature gardens.

As little will grow directly under beeches, they provide a flat, open and sheltered site for wild campers, and there is very often a tent or two under one of them. Recently having witnessed the idiotic post-lockdown behaviour of people who like to think they are campers trashing and littering lovely places, I am admiring of the most recent wild campers in this little wood, with their orderly, careful fire pits and unobtrusive behaviour.

Some years, it’s looked as though the campers (who I never see) are using their chosen tree as a kind of holiday caravan, setting up for a season. It makes sense not to have to cart everything to and fro. One of the beeches in particular is like a gigantic cupboard or merchant’s chest, with cubby holes in which to hide folding seats and tables, and lofty shelves where firewood and kindling can be stacked to dry. Washed up boards from the river can be balanced across knobbly projections, useful for everything from preparing food to changing nappies.

It’s a comfortable, homely tree, nearing the end of its long life and home to so many plants and animals. I hope it always has special memories for its seasonal human residents.