Friday, April 22, 2011

The Irish Yews in the Horse Paddock

This Irish Yew, Taxus baccata Fastigiata,  was the first to be planted in The Horse Paddock.

The yew is a universal symbol of regeneration, transformation and rebirth. Today is Good Friday, the commencement of the Easter period; branches of the yew tree have traditionally been used in the celebration of Easter and in the ancient festivals upon which the Easter rituals were based. This is a tree with a very long story indeed.

We are propagating more Irish Yews from cuttings.  The plan is that that in time they will be a major feature of this arboretum, marking the points of the compass around the central, circular lawn.  For more about this,  read the section entitled A Special Project on the page Propagating Plants at The Drip.

2 comments:

  1. I really hope that 'Horse Paddock' doesn't mean there are actually horses where you are planting Yew trees as only a few bites of yew can kill a horse within minutes.....

    ReplyDelete
  2. No horses there anymore, just our arboretum. Many years ago the paddock was used for horses and where we created the circular lawn used to be a circular pen for breaking and training the horses. We decided to continue calling it The Horse Paddock just to maintain a link with the history of this place.

    ReplyDelete