Fagus Sylvatica Pendula

Imagination-fuel for all, the young and less young alike. Picture a classic beech tree, all soft green and velvet, but melted, cascading and voluptuous. Branches of smooth grey-brown bark grow down, not up, and this topsy-turvy lovely can achieve 12 metres over 50 years. It has gorgeous autumn colour and like many beeches it can sometimes retain spent leaves over the winter. They will be a lovely crisply-crunchy coppery orange.

Wider than it gets high, this beech tree has an unmistakeable silhouette. Mammoth-y, Where the Wild Things Are masses of sweeping and pendulous branches make this a tree of daydreams, really. A mature specimen will have branches that start low on the trunk at a perfect scrambling-up height, and the kind of dense curtain of leaves which fall all the way to the ground to make caverns and castles, secret pavilions or pirate caves. Plant one as a specimen, stately yet soft: it’s the kind of architecture that draws the eye down which is rare for a tree, and makes a nice change.

As described in the American Agriculturalist, Volume 22 (1863) ‘Always attractive, it is toward sunset that this tree shows its beauty most strikingly: then the pendulous branches throw deep shadows, and the whole tree is a picture of light and shade worthy of the study of an artist.’ Well, there you go. We could not have articulated it better, though we tried.

Position in pretty much any moist but well drained soil, exposed or sheltered. Grow in sun or partial shade and sharpen your cutlasses ready for adventure…

N.B. When clipping several plants with the same tool, have a bucket containing a 5% bleach solution and swish your blades around for 30 seconds between plants to sterilise them. This will help avoid the chance of cross contamination of disease.

As with all woody plants, plant high, exposing as much of the taper at the base of the trunk as possible. Allowing soil to accumulate round the base of a tree can be fatal. Keep very well-watered when first planted.