In the late 1970s when my parents built the house I still live in, there was no forest. The property was a disused cow pasture, full of scrappy grass and weeds. My parents began planting trees before they began the house build, and now – in my lifespan, 47 years – it has grown into a forest. When I was a child we called my parent’s plantings “the garden”, implying a place managed by us. Cultivated, civilised. Somewhere along the way we renamed it “the forest”. A self-managed ecosystem we occasionally impinged upon – cutting back, cleaning up debris – but only when it made incursions into our actual house.
In the original house design, the garden was supposed to be the main feature. The rooms were all separate wooden modules built along an open central walkway, the garden growing between them. Almost half a century later, the house has been submerged in forest. We live in the undergrowth, far below the canopy. Staghorns and elkhorns and mosses and lichen grow on the tree trunks, the bromeliads endlessly reproduce. The tallest trees in our forest are more than 45 metres. They look ancient though they are not yet 50. My parents planted the forest but it feels timeless, eternal. They had a vision when they began but I don’t think they could have imagined just how big or beautiful or interconnected each tree they lovingly patted soil around could grow.
