Colm O’Regan: I had a Johnny Appleseed moment and planted a tree

I planted them in late March. I knew I was a bit late. The trees that were left in the nursery were the last forlorn ones. 

The rest of the trees snaffled by others for ‘the schemes to plant trees for money’. I had no scheme really, only a vague plan. I don’t know much yet.

When I planted the trees, I slashed away some battered old withered ferns. 

Ferns in a cold spring always look like they have no plans to come back anyway, but this year they looked practically emigrated.

Between the jigs and the reels (a metaphor, not the proposed Irish Dancing Tribunal) I hadn’t a chance to visit the trees for about six weeks. 

I came back excited to see where they were at. And there they were. Gone. Well, gone from sight. A forest of six foot plus high ferns in their place.

“We were never gone,” said the ferns. “You are a fool to think you have any control over us.”

I was dismayed. Where were my trees that I had hoped would be part of my legacy?

The start of a Johnny Appleseed project filling in bits of scrub with native trees wherever I saw it. The slasher came out for the rescue mission but that was too blunt an instrument.

It wasn’t looking good. I couldn’t see the trees for the ferns. And then there it was, like the little plant in Wall-E, gleaning what light there was through the ferns — my first oak.

What a sight it is to see an oak. No matter how small. There’s something about them, whether it’s that they’re the seventh letter in the ogham alphabet or the Sammy Squirrel Savings Stamps acorns, they just shout ‘hope’. Maybe the little oak was being looked after by the ferns.

Now my eyes were a bit more attuned, instead of slashing, I went crawling. Parting the ferns like yer wan out of Gorillas in the Mist. 

It’s crawlable because not even briars will FAFO with ferns. But gradually I found all but two of the trees. A few hornbeams had died.

Or at the very least looked to be very much phoning it in. To be honest, I don’t know were they ever interested in the job. But I’ll give them a chance anyway. I’ve already seen an apple tree come back to life. That will probably be on one of my top five moments of the year. It almost feels like the tree is giving YOU another chance to not feck it up.

Tree planting for nature can be a bit like donating to charity. It’s as much for the donor as the recipient. In an ideal world, there wouldn’t be any need and if you don’t do a smidge of research you could do more harm than good.

But still, that being said, you can’t bate an oul tree. I know we’re supposed to let nature take its course and a natural wild Irish rainforest will take over gradually.

But I’ve been watching some places for years and it’s still been nothing but ferns. Ferns crowd out everything else. But I respect their M.O. now. I’ll use them as guards until my mighty trees tower over them. Or at least tower over me.