Restoring the Trees

England’s trees are one of its gentle glories. To people around the world--especially, perhaps, to people in this semi-arid land--the trees of England speak of permanence, age, stability and grace.

So it is saddening to learn that the recent storm that struck southern England devastated its trees. One in ten trees, 1,000 in all, are gone in Kew Gardens, the great arboretum. Hyde Park lost 1,000 trees, and the other parks of London suffered no less. As many as 100,000 trees are down in London altogether.

The country gardens and estates of the south, the work of English landscapers over the centuries, were wracked by the winds. Trees in the beautiful chalkdowns of Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire and Wiltshire were especially hard hit because they are rooted shallowly over the chalk.

The English are already talking, as the English will, of replanting and rebuilding the parks and gardens and leafy London itself. None of us now alive will live to see the full fruits of their labors, but our grandchildren will.