I have always loved trees. There is something endlessly compelling about the wind-sculpted specimens that choose to grow in the most exposed places, & every species has its own individual character and stories to tell. Over the years I have found myself returning to a handful of favourite specimens: a small hawthorn growing from what appears to be nothing more than a shelf of rock, barely larger now than it was thirty years ago; a very special woodland of gnarly, wind-twisted oaks and two sentinel sycamores; and, of course, the Roaches’ “Lone Tree,” to name just a few. And then the seasons themselves become the subject, the skeletal elegance of ice-clad winter trees, the tentative burst of spring green, the deep burnished golds that bring summer gently to a close. It is no wonder I am so captivated by the stories our trees tell, with their sprawling branches and their ever-changing form.