Daily details from the garden to bring you inspiration throughout the year
I am very fond of a yew. I would say that I love it, but then you’d say you love it too and then we’d be deep into pun territory, which we don’t have time for this morning. But it’s always been a source of fascination for me, and something I should really get to the bottom of, that the yews planted in churchyards – perhaps even some of the ones we’re often told will have been there since before the actual churches themselves – are invariably Irish yews (Taxus baccata ‘Fastigiata’), rather than your bog standard English or European yews (Taxus baccata). An Irish yew is an upright and columnar tree, whereas its English counterpart has more of an open habit when left to its own devices (we’re more used to seeing it clipped into shape). But the most obvious differnce to me is the way that the needles are arranged along the stem – in two parallel lines on an English yew, but radially around the stem for himself. Or rather, herself, as it’s the female form that bears the berries which grace most churchyard yews and which, almost always, produce an English, rather than Irish variety upon germination.
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Hello! I’m Andrew, gardener, blogger, podcaster, and owner of a too-loud laugh, and I’m so pleased you’ve found your way to Gardens, weeds & words. You can read a more in-depth profile of me on the About page, or by clicking the image above.
