Tree of life

Planting a catalpa tree to commemorate someone special prompts Toby to reflect on trees with royal significance

- TOBY BUCKLAND

NOBODY likes a name-dropper. In fact, I said as much when I met HRH King Charles III in his garden at Highgrove in Gloucestershire. We were comparing notes on tackling bindweed. Having said, ‘You mustn’t give up, he then told me the story of how he’d learnt to enjoy the physicality of ‘getting stuck in’ to gardening work. ‘Do that, he chuckled, ‘and even pulling bindweed has its pleasures. Wise words.

That meeting came to mind recently while planting a large specimen tree, an activity of which the late Queen and our new King would approve. The tree was a catalpa, aka the Indian bean tree – a favourite of my late mother if not the go-to when planting for royalty.

For that, an oak is an obvious choice – and I know the late Queen loved them. She stunned the Bishop of Exeter by asking after the health of a large Lucombe oak in his Palace garden and she wanted to know it was being looked after. This was many years after she’d spotted it in the Cathedral gardens.