Head gardener Saul Walker is urging gardeners to get out and check their trees after heavy winds battered the United Kingdom in recent weeks.
Gardeners across the nation are being urged to “check now” for a potentially “dangerous change” in their gardens following the havoc wreaked by Storm Darragh. The storm brought fierce winds, with speeds hitting up to 58mph inland and 67mph along the coast, leading to widespread power outages.
The aftermath saw numerous reports of trees toppling over, blocking roads, and causing garden destruction. However, Saul Walker, the head gardener at Stonelands House in Dawlish, warns that not all damage is immediately visible.
On the Talking Heads podcast, he highlighted the importance of inspecting trees for less obvious root damage. He advised: “It is worth going out now and checking those trees, even those you think are healthy just to see if there is any root movement in any of the root plates. What you can sometimes find is that a root plate will suddenly lift and then go back down again.”
He added, “You might not actually see that happen and that can be quite dangerous as well because you have no idea that that tree is off. So just check around those root plates and see if there has been any movement and see if there’s anything you need to make a note of.”
Saul also mentioned that the worst-case scenario for any gardener would be having to remove a tree, especially since many develop a strong attachment to them, noting that it’s often the already sickly trees that succumb to severe weather, reports the Express.
He remarked: “Gardeners can be quite sentimental. We’re quite emotional about our trees but like all living organisms they need to come to an end at some point.
“You generally will find with trees that if they are taken out by a storm, it’s very rarely a very healthy tree. Generally those trees that do come down are the ones that are hiding a little bit of illness, you’d be surprised when you start cutting into a tree that has come down that you will find that rot or a big bracket fungus that you did not know about and it saves you the problem.
“The good thing about storms is that you try and make sure no one is in the garden when these things happen. I’d rather it maybe happened in a storm that it just happened out of the blue.”
He pointed out that oak trees are “notorious” for dropping limbs or toppling over without any indication which he believes can be “a little bit more dangerous” than being in a storm. Gardeners’ World Live presenter and podcast co-presenter Lucy Chamberlain recalled an incident from her earlier days at RHS Wisley in Surrey where an oak tree collapsed.
She mentioned: “It was in the summer and it was a dry spell, and it suddenly decided to shed a huge, big, in all intents and purposes healthy-looking green limb.
“There were leaves on it, you didn’t notice there was anything wrong at all, but that’s what oaks will do. That fell onto the shop and luckily, the shop was closed because it significantly damaged the building.”
