TREE OF THE MONTH

 

 

 

 

 

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Quercus ilex

Oaks are not exactly what you'd call 'flowering' trees; least of all, you might think, holm oaks. Yet this is a holm oak I planted perhaps thirty years ago, one of a batch to form a shelter belt. I wonder if perhaps it has fallen in love: its display of catkins is almost indecent.

The tree is covered from head to foot with bunches of scores of five-inch stalks, each with twenty or twenty-five tiny flower buds, all pale olive-green. Some of its neighbours have at best, little brown bunches of old catkins. Should I be grafting plants of the flowery one to offer as a new ornamental variety?

The holm oak is a more variable tree than the books suggest. We have a quite neatly fastigiate one at Saling that would make a good tree for a formal alley. Recently, moreover, we have been finding seedlings everywhere, and I'm told that on the Isle of Wight they are considered weeds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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