Time is a gardener’s secret weapon when planting for the future

But please, this year – and now, while remnant trees in garden centres are cheap – plant at least three trees – ones that will slowly grow enormous, though not near your foundations or sewer pipes. These will be the trees for future generations, that will live 100 years or even 600: olives and English oaks, bunya buts, walnuts, chestnuts, ginkos, river red gums, grapevines or kiwi fruit whose trunks will grow bigger than your wrist, or a whole row of crabapple trees, the kind that give blooms, fruit, and the calls of 100 birds as they guzzle your fruit just before you were about to pick them to make jelly. Birds, fruit bats, possums and sugar gliders have a telepathic sense that tells them the day the humans plan to pick, so they can get in first.