{"id":30,"date":"2014-08-10T11:46:49","date_gmt":"2014-08-10T11:46:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/doitinstile.co.uk\/?p=30"},"modified":"2015-06-05T08:59:13","modified_gmt":"2015-06-05T08:59:13","slug":"the-great-bay-tree-mystery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/doitinstile.co.uk\/?p=30","title":{"rendered":"The Great Bay Tree Mystery"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"OLYMPUS<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

THE GREAT BAY TREE MYSTERY: a Tresco conundrum<\/strong> We\u2019ve been coming to Tresco for 30 years now, scary when you think about it and realise that some of the pillars of today\u2019s island community weren\u2019t even a twinkle in their mother\u2019s eyes at the time.\u00a0 We turn up at least once and often twice or more times a year and count many of the islanders as friends with whom many a glass has been sunk over these years. Yes, obviously, we\u2019ve seen changes and people come and go but the timeless beauty of the islands, the tranquillity, the time we have to \u2018stand and stare\u2019 never changes.\u00a0 As keen gardeners, the Abbey Gardens are always one of the first places to return to, sitting on \u201cFrank and David\u2019s\u201d bench, looking out over the garden, or down the channel to St Mary\u2019s and St. Agnes and remembering the chats we used to have with Frank during his later years as he sat there with Robert\u2018s dogs after their morning walk. But there\u2019s one horticultural issue that has intrigued and mystified me for years.\u00a0 It\u2019s the great Bay Tree conundrum.\u00a0 Where did they come from?\u00a0 Where did they go to? The exact date escapes me, but it was about 1989 or 1990, that we arrived to find that Laurus Nobilis<\/em> appeared to be planning to take over the world (or at least Tresco) akin to an evil Davros and his Dalek hoards.\u00a0 Wherever we went there were rows upon rows of bay trees in 3 inch pots. \u00a0They were at the garden entrance and the shop (in their old locations, of course), the Quay Shop, in the propagating tunnels down near where the Fire Brigade training area is, at the Dolphin Tea Rooms, the Island Hotel, the New Inn, Timothy\u2019s Corner and up at the Borough. You could turn a corner while walking the many paths that cross up Racket Town, through the plantation and across to Appletree or Penzance Road and there would be another few dozen. And yet within a year every single one had disappeared again.\u00a0 Where did they go to?\u00a0 Did the Estate suddenly manage to capture the bay tree market?\u00a0 Can you trade the species on futures? Yes, you could have bought one for \u00a33.00 or thereabouts, but it would have needed a tourist population similar to that of Benidorm to have sold them all. Is there some foreign field, full of bay trees, that is forever Tresco? Or another enchanting and enchanted Tresco where they will re-appear, Brigadoon-like in years to come?\u00a0 Are we soon to see its like again? (I did spot quite a few Hydrangeas round by the greenhouses during my last visit!).<\/p>\n

Yes, I bought one of the little bay\u00a0plants, now 6ft tall and still thriving outdoors in my frost-pocket in the Weald of Kent.\u00a0 I don’t have a decent photo of it,\u00a0 so here’s a\u00a0a picture of climber Ghislaine de Felingourd tumbling over my shed instead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE GREAT BAY TREE MYSTERY: a Tresco conundrum We\u2019ve been coming to Tresco for 30 years now, scary when you think about it and realise that some of the pillars of today\u2019s island community weren\u2019t even a twinkle in their mother\u2019s eyes at the time.\u00a0 We turn up at least once and often twice or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tresco-tales"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/doitinstile.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Ghislane-de-Felingourd.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6iAuj-u","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/doitinstile.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/doitinstile.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/doitinstile.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doitinstile.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doitinstile.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/doitinstile.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35,"href":"https:\/\/doitinstile.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions\/35"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doitinstile.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/34"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/doitinstile.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doitinstile.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doitinstile.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}