This is the story of a small ornamental tree, the Americans call ‘Stag’s head sumac’, Latin name 'rhus typhina', and of the memories and mythology wrapped around it for Volunteer Gardener, David.
The latest of the named gardens around Coy Pond was christened last year as ‘The Stairway to Heaven’. Created from a steeply sloping site, it had to be terraced to be able to plant it, using pegged down logs, the same format as the edging of the path round the pond. And in the centre of the new garden. a series of log steps leading ever upward, hence the title. David borrowed this name from an installation in his own garden. A worm-eater ladder, unsafe to use, was cut so that it zig-zagged heavenwards, terminating in a cloud shape tacked to the top. That name from an old Led Zeppelin number, which prompted the joke:
You can take a horse to water, but a Zeppelin should be led
This, together with the title, ‘Stairway to Heaven’, was duly painted on the notice board for the garden, with a cartoon of a Zeppelin, being led, of course.
David says:
"When I was four, we moved from the East End, to suburban Surrey. From a tiny back yard, to a well planned and planted 120 foot garden. Learning the names of the trees: blossom from the almond tree near the house, further down the ornamental cherry, and later in the season, the lilac blooms. In autumn, vivid scarlet leaves, of the sumac which my parents called, ‘Tree of Heaven’. So that, of course was its name. My mother rationalised the name by the ladder-like arrangement of the leaves, by analogy with the Bible story of Jacob’s Ladder. This then was my own ‘Garden of Eden’ where I learnt a life-long love of gardens and gardening."
"My knowledge grew over the years by the practical method of creating my own gardens. Coming to terms with names of plants, the common name often varying over the country, but the scientific name fixed in Latin for all. Once I started the sequence of ‘Plant of the Week’ for Coy Pond, I would ‘research’ using a much thumbed Royal Horticultural Society’s ‘A-Z of Garden Plants’. And for wildflower that gardeners had long ago tamed for garden use, ‘Keble Martin’, the standard work. But not neglecting the internet, using reliable sites for additional information."
"It was from this resource that I learnt that ‘Tree of Heaven’ did not belong to my own dear sumac, but a variety of tree, ’Ailanthus altissima’ (the adjective being Latin for ‘jolly high’). This was an introduction into America from China, and like many introductions, has becomes highly invasive. Its similarity in appearance may be evidenced by American sites dedicated to distinguishing between the two plants, and the fact that ailanthus, with its unpleasant smell, has as one of its common names, ‘stinking sumac’. The only positive aspect had been its ability to thrive in the worst urban environment, which has been taken as a metaphor for the resilience of the human spirit in the semi-autobiographical novel ‘A Tree Grows in Brooklyn’ by Betty Smith."
"Oddly enough, I have recently come across examples of each species. There was a mature specimen of the ‘real’ Tree of Heaven (ailanthus): in the vicarage garden, aptly enough. My other volunteer gardening is in the grounds of St Aldhelm’s church, where there is a small field (large enough for the beer festival marquee to pitch) behind the vicarage. The ailanthus shed a huge branch into this field, stretching a greater part of the field’s width. The ailanthus having established itself within the ‘dangerous’ category, it was duly felled."
"Poor examples of rather spindly sumac can be seen poking through the shrubbery on the other side of the pond. These are, I suspect, suckers from a tree which has long since been removed. I attempted to pot up one or two, but they did not overwinter."
"Determined to have ‘my’ Tree of Heaven in ‘the Stairway to Heaven’ garden, I have purchased a rhus typhina variety ‘Tiger eye’. Pleasing serration to its leaf, and the promise of autumn colour. To make more of a feature of this, I have terraced with a line of vertical stakes, planting into the level area behind, and so giving it additional height. I intend putting up a label, with common and Latin name, and, ‘sometimes called tree of heaven’ .If only by me!"
