According to Heather Angell in
the March April issue of The Garden, Journal of the
Royal Horticultural Society:
During
the early morning hours of October 16, 1987, a steamy African
tropical depression collided with an Arctic air mass in the
North Atlantic and formed a powerful, freakish storm.
Moving at terrific speed and packing tumultuous circular
winds up to 100 mph, it wheeled in from the English Channel
without warning and carved a swathe of destruction through
13 counties in east and southeast England.
Like the stock market crash, "The Great Storm" leveled
nearly everything in its path. But while Americans have
largely been able to recoup their paper losses, the devalued
English equities, priceless forests,
parks, and gardens will not regain their former luster for
decades, if ever. In all, some 15 million trees were felled
or irremediably damaged. The litany of
horticultural treasures devastated includes
Kew Gardens, Wakehurst
Place, Nymans, Hyde Park, and Scorney Castle which are all known all too
well to gardeners and garden lovers everywhere. What they
may not know is that some benefits will emerge from the
disaster.
For one thing,
"The Great Storm" pruned out
thousands of England's "geriatric trees" including specimens of lesser
value species that remained after the best timber had been cut
during World War II. Tempests such as this one
counterbalance nature's tendency to over produce similar to
effect of
the lightning sparked wildfires that roared through
Yellowstone National Park in 1988.
In some places this natural disaster has
resulted in splendid vistas opening views long since forgotten by
some and never before seen by a whole new generation.
Because of gaps left by fallen trees, visitors to Arundel
Castle, the ancestral home of the Dukes of Norfolk, can now look out over the
picturesque town .... at the renowned woodland
rhododendron
garden at Leonardslee, Sussex, the gale ... opened
magnificent views by removing about a thousand trees which
owner Robin Loder said he would never have had the courage
to thin out himself.
"The Great Storm" has also provided an
unexpected bonanza of research material for English
botanical scientists and environmentalists. The abnormal
number of uprooted trees will aid research into root
development and chemical properties (including the
possibility of natural pesticides). Those who study the
effects of pollution and acid rain have enough tree rings to
keep them busy for years. And English park managers and
landscape designers have been presented a once in a lifetime opportunity to implement their own ideas
in renovating properties until now considered sacred and
immutable.
As Wakehurst, Curator Anthony Schilling
said, "We are going to end up with views that even in our
wildest management dreams we would not have had the guts to
do."
