I live in a forest my parents planted when I was a child. It’s not too late for you to grow one too | Jessie Cole​on February 8, 2025 at 11:00 pm

Sometimes a branch grows so low and bushy that it blocks access to my room. I diligently cut it backMore summer essentialsIn the late 1970s when my parents built the house I still live in, there was no forest. The property was a disused cow pasture, full of scrappy grass and weeds. My parents began planting trees before they began the house build, and now – in my lifespan, 47 years – it has grown into a forest. When I was a child we called my parent’s plantings “the garden”, implying a place managed by us. Cultivated, civilised. Somewhere along the way we renamed it “the forest”. A self-managed ecosystem we occasionally impinged upon – cutting back, cleaning up debris – but only when it made incursions into our actual house.Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads Continue reading…Sometimes a branch grows so low and bushy that it blocks access to my room. I diligently cut it backMore summer essentialsIn the late 1970s when my parents built the house I still live in, there was no forest. The property was a disused cow pasture, full of scrappy grass and weeds. My parents began planting trees before they began the house build, and now – in my lifespan, 47 years – it has grown into a forest. When I was a child we called my parent’s plantings “the garden”, implying a place managed by us. Cultivated, civilised. Somewhere along the way we renamed it “the forest”. A self-managed ecosystem we occasionally impinged upon – cutting back, cleaning up debris – but only when it made incursions into our actual house.Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads Continue reading…   

In the late 1970s when my parents built the house I still live in, there was no forest. The property was a disused cow pasture, full of scrappy grass and weeds. My parents began planting trees before they began the house build, and now – in my lifespan, 47 years – it has grown into a forest. When I was a child we called my parent’s plantings “the garden”, implying a place managed by us. Cultivated, civilised. Somewhere along the way we renamed it “the forest”. A self-managed ecosystem we occasionally impinged upon – cutting back, cleaning up debris – but only when it made incursions into our actual house.

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In the original house design, the garden was supposed to be the main feature. The rooms were all separate wooden modules built along an open central walkway, the garden growing between them. Almost half a century later, the house has been submerged in forest. We live in the undergrowth, far below the canopy. Staghorns and elkhorns and mosses and lichen grow on the tree trunks, the bromeliads endlessly reproduce. The tallest trees in our forest are more than 45 metres. They look ancient though they are not yet 50. My parents planted the forest but it feels timeless, eternal. They had a vision when they began but I don’t think they could have imagined just how big or beautiful or interconnected each tree they lovingly patted soil around could grow.

Maintaining a wooden house submerged in subtropical rainforest can sometimes feel like a full-time job. We once discovered a leaking pipe beneath our kitchen sink had moistened all the particle board shelving. When you opened the cupboard below the sink, it appeared normal but it had become suspiciously spongy to the touch. All the shelving would need replacing.

We looked on – agog – as our handyman removed wheelbarrow loads of roots and composted soil from beneath our sink. Our kitchen cupboard was alive! The roots of the trees outside had grown between the slab and the wall, taking over the dampened particle board. Our forest had breached the boundaries of the house. Since then, we’ve been watchful. We dug trenches around the slabs so we could see if the roots were encroaching. The other day, lying in bed, I spied a thick tendril of philodendron spiralling inside an open wardrobe. How long had it been there? When did it break through?

What is gardening if not a constant battle for control? Nature, rearranged. It is not uncommon for visitors to remark, “If this was my place, I would get rid of some of these trees.” The subtext being, this has gotten out of hand. For the most part, they are right. We have surrendered to the forest. Years back, we raised the white flag.

Nowadays, we diligently preserve the house itself but there is no dominion over the trees. When I was little, the trees were little too, saplings – and we all grew together, from nothing much to something. We are close, we are kin. The trees are not ornamental, they are beings, our lives entwined. We try to live in harmony. Nonetheless, it takes a day to clean the gutters, and, of course, the leaf drop is unremitting, so it is also a surrender to the work of keeping the house safe and clean. Sometimes, a branch grows so low and bushy that it blocks access to my room. I diligently cut it back. Give a little, take a little. This is how things go.

What of falling trees? Yes, we’ve had them. We’ve learned our house is sturdy enough to stand solidly beneath their weight, though one once lopped off our brick chimney on its way down. The crash it made was frightening – but the world is full of frightening things.

There are parts of our property that have become truly wild. In my childhood, across a bubbling stream, we had a pristine Japanese garden, with a pond and a small pergola. There were giant boulders, artfully arranged, and manicured pathways. The forest has taken back this section. We could not preserve it. It was engulfed. In its heyday it was perhaps a folly, though we recall it fondly: the pond of flashing goldfish, the speckled trunks of the crepe myrtles. A vision once made manifest, if only for a decade or so. It lives on in our memory. You cannot, it turns out, hold everything.

I never envisaged I would spend a lifetime embedded in a forest my parents planted, but sometimes you have to stick around to see things come to fruition. Some trees live hundreds of years. The magnitude of those lifespans is hard for the human mind to comprehend. How can we know, when we plant those seeds, just how extraordinary the trees might become?

You can grow a forest in a lifetime. It can be grander and more sustaining than you could ever imagine. Visitors may gasp when they come to your home. Things may get out of hand. It is not too late to start something from scratch. It is not too late to dream. Plant a tree. Nourish it. We can’t know what the future may bring, but the trees know how to be a forest and – when we’re gone – they will prevail.

Jessie Cole is the author of four books including the memoirs Staying and Desire, A Reckoning