SO YOU got a tree in a pot at Christmas? Not every tree that was bought in a pot has been long in that pot. Garden centres will tell you. It's not much of a present to have a bare-root tree handed to you; that is, not unless you are well up in such things. As a result of one failure to get a rather exotic specimen to grow - a handkerchief tree, also known as a ghost tree, or indeed a dove tree - its successor, bought before Christmas will, on the advice of another landscaper, be kept for one full year still in the pot (a commodious one), to allow it to grow roots comfortably and without disturbance. In the meantime, it should be stood on a bed of rotting leaves or other compost. Here's to spring, 1997.
And a joyful note from Anthony Lowry of Bachelor's Lodge Stud, Navan, about the replacement for that ancient oak at the Patrician site of Downpatrick in Meath. You may remember that a lovely, still apparently lusty oak of some 250 years, had to be taken down from the front of the Church because there were doubts about it, and it stood too near to the road. That was in the spring. Now, five days before Christmas a twenty-two foot young oak came as its replacement. A fine, well-furnished vigorous specimen it looks, from close quarters. It was generously given to the parish and to all who may pass on that road, by a parishioner in memory of her late husband. It did not come in a pot. It came, from Sap Nurseries of Mitchelstown, well protected in hessian and wire. (That word hessian has resonances, hasn't it? In this case entirely benevolent.) Floreat.
There had been worries about the lasting effects of honey fungus in the root system of the old tree. But that most learned and practical of men, Bill Dallas, gave a clean bill of health. Or said it could be done. (Do you remember his magnificent charts or calendars on behalf of Tara Mines?
Anyway, that ecumenical burial ground that bears the Saint's name, standing majestically on the River Blackwater in Meath, has acquired a gift that may last for centuries.