ONE of the commonest diseases in Britain is dendrophobia. Defined as a morbid dread of trees, this is evidenced by phenomenal sales of secateurs, pruning saws and axes while the resultant amputated stumps can be seen in many front gardens. If these are typical, it is a relief for the sensitive passer-by that most back gardens are out of sight.
This is a pity, to say the least; trees can soften or even conceal indifferent architecture yet enhance that which is good as nothing else can. They give scale, add texture and provide – if the word is not too ambitious – beauty. They do this, by their mere existence, for much more than their flowering period.
Yet in spaces more than ample for a medium-sized tree, an almond may be reduced to a clothes prop or a laburnum to a
