Wednesday 20 April 2022

"The loveliest of trees: the cherry now"


Driving around residential areas recently the various magnolia trees, which a couple of weeks ago were fleetingly in full majestic bloom, are covered in dead brown flowers, victims of the bite of frost. A little sad perhaps because an annual garden highlight is over prematurely for another year.

Not so the cherry trees that were unaffected and are now coming into their own. When they are in flower they are high impact trees but for the rest of the year many varieties are quite ordinary and blend into the background. 

There are exceptions, such prunus serrula which has shiny mahogany bark, or prunus 'Accolade' which has vivid orangey-red leaves in the autumn.  Another one is the Great White Cherry or prunus Tai-Haku. I first came across this many years ago on a visit to Beth Chatto's garden. Its has the largest of single white flowers in the Spring and it also has large leaves, big enough to keep the tree noticed during the summer. In the autumn the leaves turn yellow. I always find white flowered cherries the most appealing.

A. E. Housman in his Shropshire Lad series wrote about white cherries in the voice of a twenty year old. Only fifty more opportunities left to admire the spectacle so don't let the chance slip by.


The Loveliest of Trees: the Cherry Now 

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough,

And stands about the woodland ride

Wearing white for Eastertide.


Now, of my threescore years and ten,

Twenty will not come again,

And take from seventy springs a score,

It only leaves me fifty more.


And since to look at things in bloom

Fifty springs are little room,

About the woodlands I will go

To see the cherry hung with snow.


by A.E. Housman


Prunus Tai-Haku image borrowed from Beth Chatto Gardens 
Facebook page. One of my favourite gardens to visit 
and a first rate nursery.


2 comments:

  1. Lovely poem! The title didn't ring a bell, but the text seems vaguely familiar. Definitely one not to forget [again].

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    Replies
    1. Lines from poems do tick on the memory even if at a later date you can't quite place them. Glad you enjoyed this one.

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