Last Saturday it was I Talk to the Trees from Paint Your Wagon; today let's move on to Frank Sinatra, and specifically that old favourite, All The Way. According to Ol' Blue Eyes, you may remember:
When somebody loves you,
It's no good unless he loves you - all the way.
And then he goes on:
"Taller than the tallest tree is,
That's how it's got to feel;
Deeper than the deep blue sea is,
That's how deep it goes - if it's real."
And this raises an important issue: How tall is "the tallest tree?"
It is one which the Tree Council of Ireland is addressing even as you read.
Finding the tallest tree is not a matter of simple measurement to find the answer once and for all time. Fortunately or unfortunately, whichever way you look at it, trees are living things, and the tallest tree today may well have been surpassed tomorrow by some new contender for the title, many miles, or even continents, away.
The tallest tree in these islands is believed to be a grand fir measuring 63 metres in height or 206-ft, growing at Strone House, Strathclyde, in Scotland. Looking for an answer worldwide, attention focuses on the United States, where the prime contender is a giant redwood, or sequoia, in the Redwood National Park in California, which is over 111 metres or 365-ft. A frequent near winner, apparently at present in the shade but which has been known to inch ahead, is a Douglas fir in Oregon which measures 340-ft.
There is similar arboreal competition here in Ireland. For many years a Sitka spruce over 160-ft tall, believed to have been planted around 1835 and growing in the Curraghmore Estate in Co Waterford, was believed to be Ireland's tallest tree. Then, in 1991, it was surpassed by a Douglas fir in the Powerscourt Estate in Wicklow at 165-ft, but a few years later the Waterford Sitka regained it ascendancy, and is now somewhere in excess of 52.6 metres or 172-ft.
But no one is really sure who the current winner is, and this, inter alia, is a question the Tree Council of Ireland will try to settle. It is related to the theme of National Tree Week 2000, "Trees - the spirit of a new age", which focuses on the historic and cultural importance of trees, which in turn is not unrelated to longevity. During Tree Week, the council will highlight its "tree register of Ireland", an ambitious project currently under way to identify and document the oldest, the tallest, and the most historic trees in Ireland.