There is a forest giant in my garden

Imagine as an elderly and quiet resident of the Heikantberg in Rotselaar, waking up one morning and noticing that the oak that was planted in your garden and that has been cherished for 40 years or more has suddenly grown into a giant of a 35 m height with a chest circumference of 2.5 m, measured sober. 

The oak is no longer a spindly match , but an out-of-the-way mastodon that shakes branches and foliage with every gust of wind like a golden retriever’s winter coat. Moreover, if the oak was planted in less than 10 m from your house in a fit of hubris, or more likely, if your house was planted less than 10 m from the spindly match that has now grown into a forest giant, those branches can sometimes be damaging and causing uneasiness. As an elderly and quiet Heikant resident, you may be afraid that those gusts of wind are theoretically powerful enough to destroy your house and housemates, and on top of that to the big regret of the insurance companies. 

Consequently, the question that many elderly - and quiet – residents of the Heikantberg ask themselves in such a situation would certainly be ‘What can we do about it ?’ The answer, as usual in life, is not unambiguous, but apparently satisfying for humans , animals ... and trees. 

Trees, high-stemmed deciduous trees, offer many objectifiable advantages, which I will not go into further in this article. Their most striking advantage, especially with tall deciduous ones, is the foliage. When as an elderly and quiet resident of the Heikantberg, seeing that foliage, you might sometimes have a double feeling, one of joy and one of sorrow, all depending on the phase of the year and the life you ’re in. Autumn is a factor of sorrow pushing that sorrowful loss of leaves to a climax. On the Heikantberg autumn lasts from September with its falling acorns to around Easter with its falling leaves, branches and seeds ... Gout and arthritis are other factors of grief that do not facilitate the clearing of all that mess. 

However, let’s assume that at this stage in your life, joy prevails over sadness. Briefly, sorrow can be summarized in ‘ He loses his hair’ , just like dogs do. Immediately the question arises, which dog lover brings his four-legged friend to the animal shelter because of its declining coat ? 

Falling leaves are part of a tree as moisture is of rain, howling of a baby, crowing of a rooster, chirping of all sorts of birds, a dirty chain of a bike, a virologist of the Belgian Minister of Public Health De Block ... inextricably connected. You can swear at it, but that won’t bring you any further. 

Leaves filter the light of the sun, purify the air, produce oxygen. They bring life and joy to birds , insects benefit from it and above all, they are an endless source of poetic inspiration for the sensitive souls among us and this all along the year, not just from September to somewhere around Easter. 

The objectifiable benefits of high-stemmed deciduous trees are like many other things or people in life. You don’t miss them until they are gone. In large parts of Spain, all tall-stemmed deciduous trees were cut down to make way for monocultures, infrastructural operations, habitation ... The founding story of Jean Poesen and others of the K.U.L. tells us more about the consequences of this intervention. ‘ Will Spain become a desert ? ‘ is the revealing title. The answer can easily be found. 

Will Spain become a desert ? On March 1st 2005 Joris De Vente and others published under this title. Find and read all the research you need on researchGate, www.researchgate.net 

Back to our key question, what do you do about a forest giant that spread its wings and branches less than 10 m from your house, lavishly scattering dandruff ? 

More about this next time.