What's all this tree一 planting for?" I was asked when I began writing about 1 a piece of land I had bought in Somerset. The truth is, I just love trees. And I am not 2. As I get older, all I really 3 is to plant trees, Prince Charles says in a BBC documentary in which he is 4 in the wood he planted on the day Prince George was born.
There are 5 and wonderful trees in our cities and villages. They were planted, or self- sown, years, even centuries ago. We take them for granted, 6 the creatures living among them, remain in ignorance of the 7 trees are doing us(cleaning the air, for instance) and cut them down for new 8. Yet we keep a feeling of 9 for them. This may account for the 10 the government faced in 2010 when it sought to sell off publicly owned woods, and for the wide support that the Woodland Trust (a tree-protecting charity) 11.
Trees need 12, which is why I, a city-resident, bought my Somerset woodland in 1999. At that time, climate change was already well proved, 13 my hopes of planting long-lived oaks and pines gradually developed into anxiety about their 14. Tree diseases new to the UK, wind, drought and flood were all 15 against them.
But I did not 16 things to move so fast. The woodland is still good, the new trees are growing like mad, but the creatures are 17. The rabbits have disappeared and the owl has moved. The bees and butterflies are 18 there but in smaller numbers. How can this happen on land 19 pesticides (杀虫剂)？Surely, it indicates we need to give nature the chance to restore its own 20. Meanwhile, I love my wood, and so do many of its visitors. And tree-planting has done wonders for restoring my balance town and country.
