If you think that creating a show garden is glamorous, think again. Today we are scraping the loose bark from the dead tree that is to take the starring role as the spirit of Glyndŵr. It’s filthy work and seems to take forever.
We’ve taken the tree apart for ease of transportation, but now we are trying to reassemble it it doesn’t seem to fit together – there’s a gap, and at the moment we don’t know how to resolve the problem. Peter suggests packing the gap in some way. I’m not so sure.
We need the tree to appear seamless and I’m not convinced the paint will cover the repair. It should just fit together – why doesn’t it?
We found the tree, a young oak, in the Welsh College grounds. It had been struck by lightning and couldn’t be saved. It seems fitting that a tree that was sacred to the Druids should be included in a Welsh garden. Is it fanciful to think that maybe the tree was sacrificed for us to use?
I leave the team to go and sort out the schedule for the build on site next week.
By the time I return they have gone back to the glasshouse to pot up some more plants. Apparently there’s nothing more that can be done to the tree until tomorrow when it will be painted.......but I’m still worried about that gap.
