On the night of the 8th of January 2026 my fellow gardeners down in Cornwall went home after a long day’s work. There was a rare official red warning for a storm forecast that night, Storm Goretti, but nobody could foresee what would happen. The following morning was one they will remember for the rest of their lives; tens of thousands of trees fell in winds that gusted to 123mph.
Storm Goretti left chaos and destruction in its wake. It is a miracle there wasn’t greater loss of life.
Six Months On
It’s said that time is a great healer, and that’s certainly been the case for the Cornish gardens. The scars from the storm are still to be seen but, thanks to the hard work of gardeners and arborists, things appear to be largely back to normal.
A few weeks after the storm several gardeners took a break from their clear-up operations to discuss what they had learned and observed.
Even now there’s a lot of clearing to be done, but the new light is wonderful
One of the recurring themes of the discussion was the sense that the loss of trees, while sad, would ultimately create new opportunities. A lot of big Cornish gardens have big important trees, many of which were planted when the gardens were created. There’s no appetite for felling trees unnecessarily but if one comes down in a storm then gardeners are ready to take advantage of the situation.
Light now reaches places where it didn’t before. Gardeners who once relished the shade are now now enjoying pockets of sunshine, and there are indications that the understorey plants are too.
A Fallen Beech
A few days after Storm Goretti I was invited to visit Trewithen, a charming Cornish woodland garden I’ve mentioned here before.
It was sad to see a garden I knew so well suffer so many losses. As I walked around and stared blankly at fallen tree after fallen tree my thoughts started to turn to a different idea; despite the damage most of the garden was in fact still intact.
The tree lies where it fell, not quite dead but not quite alive
Quite surprising was the loss of a particular European beech (Fagus sylvatica) along the Sycamore Avenue. The sycamores – in Europe ‘sycamore’ is the common name for Acer pseudoplatanus – were old and not in great health, yet it was a nearby beech seemingly in the best of health that fell. I don’t think for a moment that the sycamores are in better condition than expected; this was an issue of physics, the sycamores being sufficiently denuded of branches that the wind just whipped past them.
There’s just enough life for a few leaves and masts
The canopy of the beech, well-branched as it was, acted like a sail and the tree stood little chance against such strong gusts.
The Defiance Of Life
The tree still lies there. The hydrangeas are now in full leaf, oblivious to the chaos that occurred during their winter slumber.
This is not a sign of laziness but instead of a reality: gardeners cannot be in two places at once, and the garden still needed readying for its open season so any tasks that could be left until later were deferred.
As I looked at the tree again the memories of walking around with Trewithen’s Head Gardener came flooding back.
These trees were so bare of branches the wind went around them
It struck me that this tree represents the defiance that I had come to see from so many of my fellow gardeners. There was nothing anyone could have done to stop the storm but everyone was determined to make the best of the aftermath.
The beech is showing some signs of life. Let’s be clear and say that this tree is compromised and does not have a future, but there are just enough roots left in the ground to keep a small part of the tree alive, for now at least.
Always Against The Odds
Nature wants to survive. We’ve probably all seen signs of nature defying the odds. In the immediate aftermath of the storms it wasn’t the gardens that were my first concern.
It’s as if nothing happened, if you ignore the fallen tree on the right
Gardeners become part of the gardens they tend. When you spend a significant amount of your time in a garden the relationship often becomes symbiotic. The best gardeners, those who garden because doing so is a part of them, are connected with the plants of the garden. Damage to the garden is like an assault on the gardener.
In the same way that the fallen beech is driven to survive against the odds, so gardeners make gardens against the odds. It doesn’t matter how unlikely a site; given half a chance someone will make a garden.
Many trees were lost, yet so many more survived and remain today
Doing so in defiance of whatever nature throws at us is all just part of the challenge. When we get knocked down we dust ourselves off and try again. It’s something intrinsic to gardeners that non-gardeners will never truly understand.
Every loss in a garden is an opportunity for new growth. How good of you to remind us of that, Ben! You are so right about the emotional attachments we can develop for the gardens we care for.
Thank you Ben for sharing this occurrence with us. Anyone who is a gardener knows what Aristotle meant when he coined the phrase “nature abhors a vacuum.” Many years ago, in a former house, our neighbor pruned limbs off a 100 year old oak tree that they felt was threatening their house. This impacted my garden with unprecedented sunlight. The shade plants faded and the sun tolerant plants thrived. A Virginia creeper I had planted 10 years previously, sprang up seemingly out of nowhere only to grab the fence and live happily. Soon many of the scrawny plants caught the eye of the sun and filled in this area. For better or worse, the garden was altered and prevailed.