My sanctuary is this complex of ancient trees which I photograph and draw often – pencil in a small drawing pad, ink in a larger book and sometimes charcoal on larger sheets still.
I have drawn all the recognisesd ‘notable trees’ several times over and surely have a calendar of photos across all seasons and many weather conditions.
Only now on my umpteenth lap and third or fourth bout of drawing (ink) am o starting to see the story that could be told of how one tree grew up with others and competed for light successfully or not.
Today it is the beech that out grew the oak – usually the case, with the oak bending away from the dominant beech decades, even centuries ago. And now I know my trees around here I can generally talk of these companion relationships that are developing in a certain direction of have played out. The twists and turns fascinate me.
Just 20m north of here there is another such combination where the oak, equally béant over has finally become uprooted. However, there are a couple of fungi that will doom beech around here: hoof fungus is one … the other is porcelain mushroom.
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