Tollymore Forest.

I love a good and proper forest. Tall, characterful old trees. Fragrant air and dappled light. Lush mosses and fern-fringed streams. It can be the most peaceful of places, offering the visitor a moment to hide away in the tranquillity of a leafy cathedral. At the same time, however, it bursts ceaselessly with life - hundreds of living things breathing, growing, moving, singing by day and by night. You can close their eyes and rest, or keep them open and every way you look there'll be something alive, beautiful and interesting to behold.

     Of all the different landscapes of God's creation, the forest is my personal favourite. Working with RHS gardeners, I've found that it isn't hard to perceive when someone is in their favourite part of Hyde Hall- whether it is in a vegetable garden, or in a glasshouse, their expression lifts and their voice strengthens with sincerity. For me, it's woodland - the deeper and greener, the better. As the years have passed, I've gazed into them looking for imaginary creatures, later for woodland fauna, and of course recently for the flora. Others certainly feel the same - from popular children's tales to twitter pages with thousands of followers, the beauty and mystery of silvan environments clearly excite many humans.

Fortunately, my beautiful girlfriend Michelle adores forests herself and has introduced me to a very special place in her native Northern Ireland. Tollymore Forest has the oldest forest park in the nation. Rich in huge beech trees (at least in the area we wandered - though further reading states plenty of other species stand alongside the beech), they shelter the Shimna River and the delightfully-named Spinkwee River beneath their canopy. It also has at least one red squirrel - Michelle's first sighting.
     Due to the nature of beech leaves (they take a long time to degrade, and thus the leaf litter of the forest floor allows only a few plants to break through) and the full canopy, little else grows but trees. Everything seems covered in a beautiful emerald moss, and there are drifts of ferns, but otherwise the forest floor has no obstacles bar the rivers. As a consequence, it feels as though you can stride off the path and, between the pillars of trunks, just
walk in any direction you wish. Which is what we did.