[...] the other day a tornado arrived (yes, a real tornado) and I sat in the bay window, gawping silently. It was like watching two minutes of a particularly scary Hollywood film.
I'm not usually lost for words, but the other day a tornado arrived (yes, a real tornado) and I sat in the bay window, gawping silently. It was like watching two minutes of a particularly scary Hollywood film.
The huge horse chestnut tree opposite the window proved more flexible than expected, but its branches and limbs were bent near horizontal, streams of golden leaves shooting past. But it was mainly oaks that were hit near me. One of ours literally de-limbed, with just one limb of about 30cm diameter left on the tree, but rotated through 180°.
In a nearby field the path of destruction was even clearer. Numerous beautiful mature oaks suffered serious damage. Some remain untouched but many had limbs piled beneath them, or their entire crowns were wrecked.
I now realise how lucky we are not to experience such extreme weather on a regular basis - and I'll certainly be bending the ear of BBC weatherman and Gardeners' Question Time chairman, Peter Gibbs!
Seeing the damage to these fantastic oaks makes me want to weep. Most will be felled, and those that remain will look butchered. Perhaps the most worrying thing of all is that there are no middle-aged, up-and-coming replacements. It will be a very long time indeed before the field looks the same - perhaps it never will.
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