Larch in January

People are surprised that a conifer drops its needles. The larch does, and in the middle of winter it looks dead: a grey skeleton with knobbly short shoots, next to spruce that are stubbornly green.

It is my favourite tree in this season precisely because it is honest about it. It stops. It does not pretend.

The wood is another matter. Larch heartwood is dense, resinous and reddish, and it lasts outdoors far longer than pine. The fence posts along the lower field are larch and were put in before I arrived; they are silver now and still sound when you knock on them. I have been saving offcuts from a beam for a bench. The smell when you plane it is somewhere between turpentine and honey.

“A larch is a pine that has learned to let go.” — something an old neighbour said, probably not original, but it stuck.