My uncle has a mature and beautiful gingko tree, which also goes by the name of memory tree, which is a little ironic because he can’t remember where he put his hearing aid batteries, and yet he can recollect with pin-sharp detail the exact moment this tree’s predecessor was confiscated by a customs official on the way back from the unnamed country he was smuggling it in from.
“Smuggling” was a large and entirely wrong word for a tiny sapling that wasn’t harming anyone, he said, but they took it off him anyway and destroyed it, a decades-old outrage that felt pretty fresh. I’m a little hazy on how the current tree came to arrive in his garden, whether that first one was a decoy and he was packing two trees, but let’s just say that couldn’t possibly have happened because this definitely isn’t the same uncle who brought seven varieties of seed potato back from a family wedding in Germany in 1985, by putting them in my and my siblings’ pockets, because what kind of customs monster would search a child?
All of that was last century, attitudes have changed and nobody is more vigilant in the protection of Britain’s pest-free status than an avid gardener, but I love the way the conversation changes when gardeners start quizzing each other about their rare-breed stash. One minute they’ll be chatting away about scented geraniums, then there’ll be a little vocabulary switch-up as they ascend to the next level of expertise, and suddenly they’ll be talking in what sounds like a code about brown-mottled leaves.
“I’ve seen a Royal Oak smelly pelly in Denmark,” one green-finger might say, and the other’s eyes will light up: “Have you ever known one to travel?” It’s like listening to art thieves, but because you weren’t listening at the start, and you know nothing about plants, it’s impossible to gauge whether this is nostalgia for the contraband of the past, or you’re witnessing a great geranium robbery in its planning stage. I would report that immediately to the relevant authorities, by the way. I deplore horticultural rule breaking – I just like the sound of mischief.
• Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
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