250 years ago James Stuart planted 150 beech trees along the entry road to his estate near Ballycastle, Ireland. He wanted to impress his guests and visitors. Today, the rural lane is impressive indeed, with tour buses and Instagram posters making regular stops. The site has been used as a movie set and as a backdrop for ads. 

I visited the Dark Hedges last summer and was impressed enough to return with Karen and a few friends last month. 

This time I saw something new. 

Each of the mature trees had a small, round metal tag attached to its trunk with an identifying number. I suppose at some point, the caretakers of the planting realized it was easier and more accurate to say “oh, look…tree number 47 needs a limb trimmed,” rather than something less specific like, “One of those trees on the left, about 23 spots from the house, needs some attention.” 

And then I noticed something else interesting.  The rows of trees were about 250 years old. There were some empty spaces where trees had died. There were some recently cut stumps, where sick or damaged trees had been removed. In fact, several of the majestic trees seemed to have succumbed to a winter storm with high winds that blew through earlier this year and there were more gaps than I had noticed eight months earlier. 

And then, I saw a number of young trees, 5-20 years old, that were planted in the open spaces where mature trees had died.  Staked and wrapped to protect their small trunks from grazing livestock in the accompanying fields. 

But. 

I didn’t see any trees that appeared to be 50 or 75 or 100 years old.  Just the very old or the very young.  

So now, the rest of this story is my own conjecture, but here’s what I imagined could have happened. 

James Stuart planted those trees back in the 1770s.  And for a long time he was eager to watch them grow.  (I know that because in my other life I am a tree farmer.)

As the trees grew, I’m sure James got excited at what was taking shape, but he was also becoming an older man. 

James eventually passed away but his trees kept growing. For years.  For generations. And people admired what he had done.  They appreciated the planting and the spectacle of someone else’s labor. Maybe they even celebrated it. 

Every once in a while one of the trees died and that was sad.  But it was part of the natural cycle and not really a big deal because after all, there were still a lot of trees remaining. 

Then another one fell. And then another one. And that was worrisome, because that magnificent planting no longer seemed invincible. This thing that James had done was finite. The trees would live and die and one day the marvelous thing would be gone. 

But then, it seems, something shifted. Someone realized they could change that inevitability. They could, in fact, be part of the solution. And they started planting new trees that would grow to replace the fallen ones and the Dark Hedges would continue to be the impressive spectacle that it is today. 

They planted trees that they would never live to see grow to maturity.  But in time, their contribution would help to support the very thing they had come to love. 

There is a saying that, “A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit.”

But someone will.  

Keep planting trees.