The Tale of the Turner Oak
Sometimes nature sends a message to remind us to pull free from that which restricts us, however painful the severing can be, so slowly we can return to the earth, and find a nourishing soil in which to land…
In 1987, a massive storm of unprecedented strength hit the south of England. Overnight, amidst the worst winds the country had ever seen, 15 million trees were felled.
At Kew Gardens, in West London, the damage was extensive and heartbreaking – the Gardens alone lost over 700 trees. One of those trees was Kew’s beloved oak, known as the Turner Oak, whose enormous branches had acted like a sail in the winds and literally ripped its roots from the ground.
While the staff at Kew set about cutting up and removing the rest of the felled trees to make space for new, living trees, they left the decision of what to do with the Turner Oak for a little later on.
Before the great storm, the Turner Oak itself had been showing signs of stress and decline, and many of the botanists at Kew felt the great tree was beyond saving. Perhaps the storm has done the merciful thing.
So they used cranes to lift and prop the Turner Oak upright, planning to come back to it when they’d cleared the rest of the storm’s damage. As it was, it took the team over three years before they revisited the question of what do with the Turner Oak. And when they did, they had a huge surprise.
The Turner Oak was not only now healthy, but she was thriving. Her branches were strong and robust, her foliage green and verdant. In fact, the tree had put in more growth since the storm, then in the century before it.
What became clear is that before the storm the impact of visitors to the park, walking around the base of the tree and standing by the trunk, had compacted the soil below, preventing water draining down effectively, and squeezing out air and gaps between the soil particles. Gaps which are not only important for the tree’s roots to get at gases like oxygen and nitrogen, but for the whole microbiome and microfauna in the soil to be able to breathe, drink and keep the soil healthy.
The visitors, by compacting the soil around the tree, were unaware that they were slowly killing it. Each individual step didn’t make a large enough difference to be noticeable. But millions of small steps over decades can together make a huge impact.
When the storm hit, and the tree fell, its roots were pulled out, breaking up the soil around the tree, allowing air and water around the roots again. For the Turner Oak, being pulled from its foundations had created space, and a fertile soil, in which to re-root itself.
The parallels to our own lives are not accidental. Our roots, our foundations, can get compacted and clogged up by things over a long period of time. We become worn down, tightened up, unable to find space to breathe, to nourish our soil and nurture our roots, we start to wither, and fail, or fall.
Sometimes, great storms come to shake us loose, to bring space and light back into our internal root bed. Sometimes nature sends a message to remind us to pull free from that which restricts us, however painful the severing can be, slowly we will return to the earth, and find a nourishing soil in which to land.
By loosening and freeing the roots, the Great Storm had allowed the Turner Oak to breathe again and to enter a new lease of life, much greater than the one it was living before the storm.