We have a picture hanging on a wall at home painted by Roger Fry about the time of the first world war and entitled ‘Pruning Trees’.
We have a picture hanging on a wall at home painted by Roger Fry about the time of the first world war and entitled ‘Pruning Trees’. He portrays two men, one of whom is cutting off a very large bough from an apple tree, while the other is pulling the bough with a rope. Every winter, before I go out into the orchard to do my own apple pruning, I study it carefully, since I feel I need to remind myself what a highly regarded activity pruning has always been. I expect this is because it is a physical activity, like sex and cricket, which largely depends for its success on what goes on in the head.
I cannot think of many gardening activities which demand quite such a range of cerebral attributes, such as good spatial awareness, visual discernment, and aesthetic sense, as well as a grounding in basic botany, entomology and plant pathology.
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