ALMOST overnight, early in June, the front garden began to take off. Where previously there had been a self-effacing collection of bushes and shoots, suddenly there was a scramble for the sky. You’d think we had watered them with steroids, but it was simply the hint of warmth that set them off. That, and the skip-worth of rocks Alan had spaded out in previous months, giving their roots freedom to roam.

In no time at all, a miniature Manhattan was taking shape, as fronds and branches and leggy peonies vied to make eye contact with the chimneys. With everything puffed up, weeds had little chance to take hold, but one weekend I dutifully and with some difficulty squeezed my way between the beehive hairdos of hardy geraniums and the soaring buddleia. I didn’t find much, but among the things I tugged out was a stalk with a glove-shaped leaf and a very odd bulb at its base. Less of a bulb, in fact, and more of a conker.

A knowledgeable friend, who was mowing the sward in front of our houses, instantly identified it as a horse chestnut. It hadn’t fallen far from the tree. One of the most striking specimens on the village green is a chestnut. In springtime it produces enough candles of blossom to light a Victorian ballroom; in autumn it drops such a harvest of glossy chestnuts that scavenging kids combing over the grass might be mistaken for truffling boars.

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Hoolet’s Alan Titchmarsh suggested I could plant this frond and watch as it grew by a foot a year. I decided to take his advice. The one on the green must be at least a hundred feet high, so ours will needs space to flourish without fearing that a Borders Council tree surgeon will hove into view to thwart its plans.

Finding an empty spot near our back gate, I dug into the sphagnum moss, where it seemed to feel at home. To protect it from the fortnightly man with the mower, I’ve surrounded it with cane. As I write, this tiny sapling is fluttering in the breeze. Now boasting two leaves, it has already doubled in size.

At the moment it is keeping company with the swaying silver birch on one side, and the crab apple and hawthorn nearby. After reading Richard Powers’s novel The Overstorey, I now realise that trees communicate with each other below ground and over the airwaves, so its arrival will not have gone unnoticed.

Quite how mighty we’ll allow it to get depends on what happens on the other side of the gate. There is talk of a house being built at the top of the field, with a drive that’ll go past our gate. If that should come to pass, what better screen – for them as well as us – than a sturdy hardwood?

On the other side of the summerhouse, meanwhile, the once feeble copper beech sapling has turned from a sickly-looking waif into an elegant little tree. When one of our neighbours first saw it, three years ago, she looked aghast. Did we have any idea how big it would grow? Actually, I did, because the parent from which it had seeded in a friend’s garden, and which she then kindly offered to us, is truly magnificent. I had to reassure her that the intention was not to let it reach its full height – which wouldn’t be for another century or more – but to keep it clipped down to a bush. Of course, the beech will have other ideas, but whereas in most matters I am non-confrontational, when it comes to pruning I have a ruthless streak.

Yet, as its blueish-black leaves glisten in the sunshine, it seems a shame to get the shears out so soon. Nor would I necessarily be allowed to. Alan takes an almost fatherly interest in its welfare, as in all our plants.

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If I can’t find him of an early evening, he’ll be out with the watering can, giving the beech a soaking. In its early stages, when its progress was underwhelming, a gardener reassured us that it would be putting all its effort into spreading roots. By now, they’ll almost have reached sea level.

There’s a general feeling that trees are a good thing, and the more we grow the merrier. Those of us whose carbon footprint is too heavy can assuage our consciences by planting a tree, or a grove, or getting an offsetting company to do it for us.

I’m not entirely convinced about the ecological sense of this, particularly since trees take years to become powerful lungs. Nor will every tree that’s planted thrive. But as a response to our impact on the environment, it’s surely better than nothing.

The problem is, those areas where trees are being cultivated in their hundreds of thousands will soon look as if they’ve had a blanket thrown over their heads. Already there are grumblings about the mono-stands of Sitka spruce on upland hillsides. In earlier ages, before sheep moved in, they’d have sustained a much richer and more aesthetic and diverse mix of hardwood, like oaks, elders and hazel, with Scots pine.

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It would seem we are going through a fourth wave of resettlement. In the middle ages, sheep were introduced into woodlands, such as the Ettrick Forest, thereby reducing glorious swathes of trees to scrubland. Then, centuries later, people were shifted off the land to make way for sheep. Now, sheep farmers and landowners are being encouraged to diversify into tree planting, to help meet carbon neutral targets.

The principle is clear, but I remain sceptical about its subtlety. With a profusion of conifers creeping over the countryside, the habitat for wildlife will be depleted. Standing under a canopy of spruces, you immediately see the difference in the richness of vegetation and birdlife, and the quality of light. A mixed wood is a busy, airy, place, filled with birds and mosses, fungi, insects and flowers; the carpet beneath conifers is a less hospitable, nurturing place.

As debate grows over national reforesting projects, it would appear that there are the good sort of trees and the bad, those that are favoured, and others with question marks over their heads. Watering the horse chestnut this morning, I wondered what category it belongs to. It’s becoming clear that not all trees are equal.

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