......

THE TREES, he says....



they are centenarians!!
Ensuring that there is no doubt, we hear the
message twice!!



They were planted in the nineteen-twenties or thirties.
They were planted, both men tell us, as mature
trees.





The yard man shrugs. I smirk.
But neither one of us believes those trees were planted as mature trees (However could that be?! We were told when we planted our prized Copper Beech that it would grow slowly; approximately fifty years would get it to maturity. Already at its relatively young age of twenty-eight, it stretches credulity to believe it could be snatched out of the ground and re-planted elsewhere!) So we shake our heads and continue along the garden boulevard,




spying many other old and (very) mature trees.
......