In the garden: Yew could be the perfect Halloween tree
I have some catching up to do on what should be final tasks for the season. I’ll be spending this whole weekend in the garden, piling leaves and completing my annual compost pile cleanout, and I love it.
The result, apart from a tidier garden and a nice big pile of fresh compost, is me in my mucky boots and specialist garden clothes (whatever I happen to be wearing at the time), looking like a zombie.
This is so appropriate, given it’s Halloween in a couple of days. Other than that, there isn’t anything creepy around my place. I did see a pair of eyes staring at me from a dark corner in the shed one evening, but it was only a cat. And I do have a few plants out back that would be more than scary if one were to eat them.
In fact, to get to my front door, trick or treaters have to brush past one of the deadliest plants around, although I can’t see anyone passing up candy to chew on leaves. It’s a yew tree, or rather a shrub, and all parts of it are poisonous if eaten, except for the red fleshy part of the berry that surrounds the seeds.
The European yew is perhaps the longest living tree in the world, as old as 9,000 years, but dating is tricky as the boughs become hollow as they age, leaving no rings to count; yet the yew continues to grow on, uniquely resistant to rotting when limbs split and break.
Keep one long enough and the trunk could measure two metres across — and in exceptional cases more than three metres — but it may take an eon or two as they are slow growing.
Yews in Scotland have been dated to 2,000 years old, while in Spain a tree planted in 1160 today has a circumference of seven metres and has been designated a national monument. In parts of Spain, it was an All Saints’ Day tradition to place a branch of the yew on the burial place of those recently departed to help guide them in the afterlife.
European yews are often found growing in or near church yards in Britain and France where the branches would have been on hand as a substitute for palm fronds on Palm Sunday. When I was growing up it was said they were planted there to keep them away from browsing cattle in case any had a death wish. The more likely reason is they were there before the church was built, or the site was a place sacred to ancient druids who may have planted the trees.
Despite its poisonous nature, extracts from the yew have been used in the what-doesn’t-kill-you-will-cure-you practice of ancient herbalists. They may have been on the right track, as subsequent research has resulted in its use in the treatment of cancer.
Another historic use for the yew was in the production of bow staves, which were constructed with the sapwood on the outside and the heartwood on the inside. As the unique properties of yew cause the latter to resist compression and the former to resist stretching, the strength and efficiency of the longbow was greatly increased. Thanks to this, the highly regarded English longbow, made from yew, reputedly won them the battle of Agincourt.
The yew has long been associated with longevity, death, magic, healing, and has strong connections with the underworld, making it the perfect Halloween tree, so it should be most appropriate for me to stand at the door in my zombie garden clothes waving a yew branch — or maybe not.
