In my post showing photos of the Italian Garden at Arley Arboretum I was asked what the trees lining the wall were and at the time I didn’t know. I have now found out that they are Silver Lime trees (Tilia tomentosa) and the interlocking of the branches is pleaching which is a term I have never heard of before.
Pleaching is a technique to weave the branches of trees into a hedge. Commonly, deciduous trees are planted in lines, then pleached to form a flat plane on clear stems above the ground level. Branches are woven together and lightly tied.[1] Branches in close contact may grow together, due to a natural phenomenon called inosculation, a natural graft.
Ah. Thanks. And nice pleaching. I wonder who decided the words weaving or intertwining were not sufficient? Mr Pleach? Inosculation is very interesting too.
I agree the words pleaching and insoculation are rather curious as words. I found both words a little disturbing they had a feel of subjugation about them. Then I looked them up and was even more disturbed by the thought…
I found your photos of the Italian garden very nicely framed Cherie but i enjoyed your narrative of the Pleaching of the Silver Lime trees… thank you for sharing this with us….peter:)
Thank You Peter, I had a lot of fun taking photos in and around that garden. The weather was just perfect
Beautiful garden and I have also learned some new English words today!
The garden is lovely
and in researching about the trees I learned some new words too!
One wouldn’t want to abbreviate silver lime too much, Cherie.
Best just to enjoy the garden and not think too much
Well – blow me down!
Pick me up – and blow me down again!
It just goes to show how wrong you can be when you partake of too much red wine at your nieces wedding reception in an arboretum.
I can see I shall have to ‘turn over a new leaf’!
(or get a new book on trees.)
When I was asked the question on my previous post I checked out the Arboretum website and the leaflet about the Arboretum and there was nothing to help me out…
The next day I found the Vistor Pass/Map that I was given on entry and there was the answer, so I had to share it
There is no such thing as too much red wine at a neices wedding reception
Did you see many red Japanese maples in the arboretum?
I saw a lot maple trees at Westonbirt Arboretum.
Yes there were maples and their colours were very beautiful