For the love of trees

Assistant head gardener Emma Thick and I are standing on the edge of the lake at Thenford House in Northamptonshire. The sun is battling against the odds, the handsome stone church of St Mary the Virgin is behind us, and a couple of geese are moseying around looking for trouble. More importantly there are trees everywhere and at every stage of life – from venerable oaks to newly planted acers – for this is one of the best stocked arboreta in the country.

Thenford is a very imposing house built in the 1760s to a classic Palladian design of two wings flanking a central block. It was bought by Michael and Anne Heseltine in 1976: the garden immediately surrounding the house was well cared for, but the woodland had not really been given much love over the previous century. As Emma explains, “There were mostly self-sown ‘pioneer species’ like sycamore or ash, but nothing much in the way of decorative or special trees.”

Although Lord Heseltine was otherwise occupied for much of the 1980s and ’90s when he held various ministerial offices (and created Liverpool’s International Garden Festival in 1984 in an attempt to revive morale and tourism in the city after the Toxteth riots), things were still happening at Thenford. Waterways were being desilted, an avenue of yews (planted in the 17th century) was cleared of brambles and scrub, and all the time trees were being added. Over time a smattering of trees has grown in number as a simple desire to reclaim the garden turned into a passion bordering on obsession. Soon the garden grew into a proper arboretum and today there are upwards of 3,500 different species of shrubs and trees spread across about 70 acres of Northamptonshire.

There are two ways of looking at trees: the first is to appreciate the general effect of a well-planted woodland. Stand at the front of the house an