Ashes to ashes

It is getting to be a familiar sight: the thinned canopies of ash trees, dead branches reaching accusingly into the impure air.

The trees can respond with what seems like desperation, producing an excess of seeds that weigh down their graceful limbs.

I had not realised how many elms were still around until a few years ago. admittedly, very few make it to the size of even a small tree. They are infected and die when about 15 feet tall. But you see the suckers sprout up - another act of desperation - ten feet or so away from the hedge in which, once, a mature elm stood, proud and lofty, before Dutch Elm Disease killed it. Or killed the tree... there's life yet underground.

Ash too can rise, phoenix-like, from seeming-death. It is not as lusty as willow but a stump, all that remains after the stem has fractured and fallen, will show regrowth, green and vibrant.

The resilience, the sheer determination, of the vegetal is humbling.

I broke the stem of one of my little poplars this spring and thought that would be that, but it lives still, defiant. Even stronger-looking than some of its peers. The citrus tree, pruned back to almost nothing after a bad scale insect infestation, is larger than before. The lilacs and cherry, notably the front (white) lilac, so heavily pollarded a few years ago, have rallied and appear more vibrant than before.

And today, I saw that my red, red rose has a second flush of buds. That is not so remarkable. What is remarkable is that there are more than ten. Never before has this rose offered ten flowers in a year, let alone a second flush of a dozen.