Difficulty Trees Experience at www.japanese-home-gardens.com

if growth continues late in the northern summer, its new wood may be still soft and immature when the autumn frosts strike. More surprising is the difficulty trees experience in moving from the west coast to the east of North America - or from the Orient to Europe. Western conifers are as unhappy in New England as oaks from Ohio are in Britain or France. On the other hand, spruce trees native to subarctic conditions in Canada and Norway are widely used for reafforestation in western Europe.

In a rustic garden the trees should be fruit trees wherever possible, or at least blossom trees of some kind. Apples, pears, plums, and cherries will all help to create the right atmosphere, as will nut trees such as hazel or almond. If there is space for a large tree, a Walnut might do.

The tone of this book is manifestly optimistic - but we have sometimes been told of a particular point we have tried to make: 'It's all very well to claim that, but when we tried it....' Where other teachers from odier schools are present, though, such a remark is almost sure to be greeted with 'Oh no, we've had no trouble there at all - our difficulty has been . . .' which in turn will be contradicted by a quite different experience from another school.