Cannot blame you at all for the gathering onslaught of bile! It's awful to see majestic growth so badly used and abused. Sounds like everyone wants to imitate the trees-in-cathedral effect of the last royal wedding...any idea what happened to those? I remember when Rupert Murdoch had mature oaks airlifted to the club/golf course he built in southern California in the late 80s/early 90s...I wonder if the trend started then.

Good grief! I had no idea such horribleness was going on - around here that sort of behavior would get you lynched. Most of our towns have "heritage tree protection" laws - many folks think they go overboard a bit, but they do protect large old trees - you cannot cut them down, unless they are in such a sorry state that they are a clear and present danger to people's lives. Stanford University is in a town, Palo Alto, which is named after a famous redwood tree. When the "high speed train" from San Francisco to LA was being planned, well, too bad, that tree (which is still there), was to be a casualty of the new train. Ha! Five years later it turns out that it is the train that is the casualty - it is not going through Palo Alto at all...

Jackie

Yet more evidence that a few people have way too much money than they should. We need to return to the days of heavily taxing the rich, even if it is only to save some really lovely old trees. ;)

Campanula, aside from fervently sharing your outrage at this travesty, I have to say that one of the great delights of this forum is your postings, of which this is an absolutely sterling example. Your "rants" are chock full of the most delightful and hilarious examples of what can be done with the English language by someone who has complete mastery of it, and who manages to be outrageously funny and entertaining even in a serious message such as this .....well, further words just fail me. Alas, I don't have your genius for madly and extravagantly expressing your every thought and whim, so I'll quit while I'm ahead. I can only say .....you go, girl.

Ingrid

One the one hand, I don't want to encourage bile, not good for the digestion.
On the other hand, the beginning of a healthy spiritual existence is the awareness that we are not the center of the universe. What organism can teach this truth--humility is the word for it--to egocentric man better than a mature tree in all its grace and dignity? I certainly wonder at the psychic state of a person who can treat a tree as a prop.
This is not what gardening is about. At least not for me. If I'm going to get anything important out of gardening, it's by accepting that I'm dealing with a set of conditions that aren't entirely within my control. I have to understand and collaborate rather than try to impose my own vision, will and wants in their pure form.
So, anyway, I don't know about Chelsea in toto, as I don't follow it, but heartily agree with you about this particular abuse.
Melissa
P.S. There's a great Italian proverb that says, "L'erba voglio non cresce nemmeno nel giardino del re". Roughly translated, "The herb 'I want' doesn't grow even in the king's garden".

Campanula I am with you! when it comes to uprooting mature trees like that. 'Eco-rape' is an excellent term. I will have to use that! May I?

New technology in tree spades allows the digging up and transporting of huge trees. California has a lively trade in 400 yr old oak trees and century-old palm trees, municipal heritage tree protection laws notwithstanding. It's horrifying. These are living organisms that were critical components of the ecosystem they grew up in, and we rip them out and plunk them down elsewhere out of context as if they were a knick-knack. I think it's a symptom of our extreme disconnect from nature, to treat living things so callously and disposably, and also a testament to our need for contact with other species. But it's plant cruelty. We no longer treat animals that way for the most part because we've realized it's cruel and inhumane and bad for the environment and makes us callous towards other beings. Some day we will realize what we're doing to ourselves by treating trees and other plants that way too.

Here in Washington state trees are a dime a dozen and treated as entirely disposable although there's some protections in some areas for Garry oaks, the only native oak, which grows only in restricted areas. People make a living by digging up native vine maples and subalpine firs from the mountains and selling them for landscaping. I've seen Seattle-area landscapers taking nurse logs from mature forests to use in landscaping - horrible practice! those are multi-century old downed trees that serve as germinating ground for other plants and shrubs, lasting on the forest floor for hundreds of years. Some forest species primarily germinate on nurse logs, like western hemlock and red huckleberry. It's only ok to remove these from the forest if it's being cleared and bulldozed anyway! they're critical to forest health and regeneration. Not disposable!

What is the trees in cathedral effect? I don't have a tv or take a newspaper and I didn't see anything of the most recent royal wedding.

I hate to see large well placed healthy trees come down for the "flavor of the week" type tree.

I also hate the "doomed to failure" type plantings so popular on tv shows. Todays property owners are unlikely to spend the time and thought to maintain, some never are designed to live longer than the film crew. A Mow and Blow crew just is not going to know what to do with them.

Or the displays that take more water and power to keep them going than should be wasted (a serious issue in SoCal)

That being said, my poor tree guy hates me....cause if given my way, there were be a lot less trees on my work property. Because...they are not the right tree for the right place. They looked cute as tiny 5g trees. Not so cute as a 2 story tree planted directly on your electrical service or over the sewer line or feet from a slab.

Anyone need a 2 story San Pedro Cactus? lol

Until the mid nineties, trees for sale were either field grown with regular undercutting and sold when still very young or grown in containers and sold after 5 or more years in the nursery. New technology in soilless compounds, regular root pruning, airpots and continual irrigation has made it possible to grow trees in containers on a permanent basis - a tree grows very slowly for around 8-10 years, growing a sturdy root system and increasing and lignifying the girth of the trunk. The tree will then move into a secondary growth stage where it will put on height and stature, attaining a mature outline as quickly as 15 years and can, of course, be grown in the UK. Nothing gives a garden weight and grandeur like a mature tree and this less damaging option was the preferred method of staging trees for immediate impact....but in gardening terms, the continual maintenance, required to get such trees established in the ground is demanding and not always successful. There is considerable status and whopping sums of money attached to Chelsea so a kind of arms race developed: who had the biggest, the rarest, the most expensive, most exclusive (blah blah). The practice of uprooting mature trees is not new - it was definately the modus operandi of Capability Brown and then, as now, it seems that if the price is right, there is nothing which is not for sale. I find the idea of a show garden more baffling than enraging but am content to see it as a spectacle, a piece of theatre with no relevance to the actual practice of gardening. Festoon your gazebo with pearls and rubies if you wish - I will have a sly smirk and mock but I won't feel like poking a sharp daisy grubber up your nose. The big tree cult is, to my mind, a much nastier phenomenon where a terrible sacrifice is made for the sake of the 'wow factor'. The 'wow factor'! What, are we all eight years old? Gah, I am on the point of ramming my head against the keyboard repeatedly and would be gnashing my teeth if they were not safely stashed in my pocket.

Twenty years ago my neighbor had lots of money and I didn't. She bought 200 dollar firs and had them planted. I bought 5 dollar firs and planted them. Now, my firs are bigger than her firs.
Go figure.
A garden in Montana is an entirely artificial world. It cannot survive without lots of watering. Every year, we get these people moving in. Most do not stick it out and when they go, there's a missing tree, usually. They just will not walk by and drop a hose on that tree once a week.
You see them in August, finally out with the hose. Too late they stand there puzzled, trying to figure out how they killed that gigantic tree in one summer.

I am extremely attached to this forum because of the thoughtful, literate and adult levels of communication. I even wondered if roses transmitted some sort of subliminal signal or strange molecule which facillitates good language skills. I am not much of a forum visitor and find Facebook and such anathema. Twitting would be hopeless - 140 keystrokes - bah, I am barely getting into my stride. A few of the politico forums I frequent are populated by hyperactive buffoons with bad attitudes, no social skills and a literary age of around 6. To get to the point (in record time) I must say how joyful it is, both writing and reading this forum - Melissa and Ingrid, you both write so clearly and descriptively but your gardens are not static- they are continually evolving....and so are you, inasmuch as you detail the actual doing and feeling involved. Hoovb is the mistress of the pithy comment, Reg - a voice of balance and sanity, Jaqueline - you have a great ability to locate your garden in a wider context - art, history, community - so yeah, I do try to raise my game, use punctuation, avoid dodgy spelling, tone down my normal foul-mouthed, blasphemous language (a bit) and make an effort to uphold the high standards of writing and information which runs through the ARF.

While I find the thought of uprooting a mature tree and transporting it around the globe for an exhibition dreadful, I don't think that Chelsea is the only show to do such things. Nor is this a new thing. Wealthy people have been doing it for centuries and a lot of the hybrids of plants we have today came from those wealthy people who traveled the globe and brought back exotic plants to show and breed with, including roses. And they will continue to do so as long as they have the money, time and inclination.

I know I'm the minority voice here, and I respect your opinions, but the few times that I have been able to glimpse the Chelsea show through TV I have been bedazzled by the amazing spectacle and splendor of it all! Yes, it is a designer display by and for the "vulgar rich" but if I get an opportunity to view it why shouldn't I enjoy seeing it? And I no longer waste energy on things I have no control over. Banging my head against the wall will not make them any more conscientious. It only makes MY head ache.

Having just read Reg's Wikipedia entry on Jules Gravereaux, I am so pleased that throughout time and even in the present there have been and are people who use their wealth wisely and not FOOLISHLY. I agree with Campanula's rant against the "jaded celebs and moneyed fools" who waste precious and irreplaceable ancient trees, but these people would be fouling whatever endeavor they engaged in not because of their wealth or celebrity but because they are fools. The fools of the horticulture world come together annually to debauch the good and splendid art of gardening. I daresay that had we their money, we would use it to create gardens that would make gardeners proud, idyllic gardens with plants in them to be strolled through and enjoyed. We would, wouldn't we? We wouldn't go creatively berserk, would we? I think not; I hope not. We'd do more/better/bigger of what we do now in our little/medium-sized/huge backyards with paid, competent help. We'd import from France, Australia, Europe all the rare roses we've dreamed of and drooled over. We'd build a glass dome over the garden to create the perfect, year-round growing atmosphere complete with a gentle-rain machine and air filters that screen out the bad bugs and the bad fungus. (Well, it's a thought.) We'd use our wealth for GOOD, and no one would ever, ever accuse us of having small penises.

Sherry

P.S. Let's have our own garden show during Chelsea week and post photos of our real gardens. Anyone game?

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

I do agree camp, this is the most literate and rational forum I visit. Like to look at the newspaper comments just to see what the trolls think but would never post there!! I saw the picture of the cork oak on the RHS website and tutted, not to mention the strange beech hedging 10 foor up in the air on trunks. I don't like a wild garden but some of these just take the mick. Some of the specailist growers probably have nice gardens, the David Austin one and Peter Beales one are probably decent. I do look forward to having a look at some of the new releases around this time too :-)

Geesh Campanula...when I read the intro I thought you were going to be getting irritated about the 1st Anniversary of the Duke and dutchess...it's about a year I suspect.
I was wrong...you are so completely right. These days there is little respect given to trees., etc. and so much respect shown for wealth at any cost.
A century ago in this country they were called the Robber Barrons. Teddy Rooseveldt helped put reins on their parade. Sure hope someone comes along to reign in the current crowd.
Perhaps my global interpretation is not on target but I hope you get the gist and the thought that we all see the world pretty much the same.
Good day to you.
Jeannie

Campanula, you are so right about this forum. It is a magical place of kindred spirits. Case in point -after I read your post, I came upon "A Rose Garden in Sardinia" by Maurizio. Inspiration defined.

Companula, I assume you get equally as exercised about humanity's inhumantity to humanity. Good for you.

Your people are gathering...
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/house-and-home/gardening/horticulture-can-you-dig-it-7763814.html

I'd love to go to both Chelsea and this... but am focusing on getting to Mottisfont this year.

Well, Campanula, you have cured me of every wanting to go to Chelsea (not that I ever thought of it, hate big crowds and unnatural stuff!), but if I did visit, what would you suggest? Are there tours of just 'plain ole Cottage gardens'? That's what would interest me...

Ogrose, if you do make it to the US, you could do worse than check out the National Gardening Scheme's 'yellow book' - a list of public and private gardens which open for charity on certain days throughout the year. Many of these are small, privately owned little treasures, as well as the more obvious college gardens and stately houses. Sometimes, there will be an 'open village' where many small gardens are open in the same area so you can wander from one to the other. I much prefer this smaller, more intimate type of gardening although gardens which have huge budgets and many workers are also astounding to go and look at as well.
And you are more than welcome to visit my tiny garden and chaotic allotment in picturesque Cambridge.

Do you mean UK Campanula :)

Yep, brain dead with ire. UK it is, Jessica.

Well, Campanula, if it ever happens, I'll take you up on it, for sure! That is one trip I would LOVE to take...

OH!! Can I smoke and drink wine??

Campanula, You are so right about Chelsea! The mania is international. Our weekend gardening shows are currently breathless in anticipation, and we are on the other side of the world!
For some years now our "top garden designers" have been waging war at Chelsea. They spend dizzying amounts of money to ship their "outdoor rooms" across the planet, scour Europe for plants they can pass off as Australian and send teams of workers to assemble their nasty creations.
Hordes of Aussie matrons take expensive trips to see the fun.
What amazes me is that the Australian customers of these "top garden designers" don't realise they're paying inflated prices to fund these international triumphs. It's about the last example of what we used to call our "cultural cringe", the feeling that nothing really happens in Australia unless the rest of the world sees it.
Can't wait for the telly clips of the Queen's inspection!

Sue

ah yes, Suesette, the Aussies have been erecting their inflated barbecues for the last few years, usually involving massive amounts of timber or stone and an absolutely gigantic cooking area. I know the 'barbie' has become something of an Aussie icon but really..... A shame, as I had hopes that the international aspect of Chelsea would be really rewarding. Sadly, the astounding sums of money involved has restricted any really interesting concepts of design and gardening unless it is a pastiche of native styles, conducted by some TV 'face'. Every so often, there will be a standout garden - a few years ago, I remember a spanish garden called 'Patio Povera' - a really witty and unusual take on recycling and found objects and there was a concerted effort to at least give a nod towards water scarcity, climate change and sustainability. However, the last few years, it is business as usual with almost a brazenly decadent theme of opulence and money (last years diamond garden was a nadir, imo). Bread and circuses!
Well, I am arming myself for a summer of unwanted spectacle with the Olympics, the European cup, the bloody Jubilee - I predict my allotment will hit an all-time high as I will be spending a LOT of time there.