Alien language

Trebah Garden, Cornwall

Thick stalks of new gunnera growth emerge. Photo: Andrew Jones

“If you stick to the main paths you should be OK,” says the woman behind the ticket desk.

“Thank you,” we say.

“Uh-goooo,” says our passenger.

What we look for in a walk has changed in the last few months. Long, up-and-down, calf-straining stomps over Cornish clifftops have lost some appeal. Gentle strolls on wide, stepless, pram-friendly paths close to a café and baby-change are more attractive.

Trebah Garden, near Falmouth, is just the ticket. It has four miles of paths that funnel visitors up and down a valley topped by a visitor centre (with café and baby-change) and tailed by a beach.

Between are three bodies of water of increasing size – a puddle, a pool and a pond – that viewed from above must look like a dripping tap emptying into the Helford River beyond the beach.

Spanning the north end of the pond is a Monet-like bridge. It’s a serene image only spoiled by the thought: “Why can’t those people just get off the bridge? They’re ruining my photo.”

I bend almost 90 degrees at the waist to push the pram uphill on the final leg, but overall it’s a fairly smooth ride. Much like, I’m fortunate to say, fatherhood has been so far. There are still constant worries though. Like, how will he learn all the words? Should I be reading the dictionary to him?

Rather than aardvark, aback and abacus, we start by telling him what we see. Robin, raven and buzzard. Camellia, davidia and gunnera.

I hesitate to mention gunnera, what with it being something of a dirty word – and not just because it sounds a bit contagious.

It’s illegal to sell or plant gunnera, also known as giant rhubarb. But if you already have it, you don’t have to get rid of it. And Trebah remains proud of its Gunnera Passage, which in summer is a winding tunnel under leaves that grow two-and-a-half metres wide from stems five metres tall.

The passage has died back over autumn and winter. Today, in early spring, we are greeted by an alien landscape. Or an Aliens landscape. Looking across at dozens of dark, knotted mounds, I’m reminded of the scene in the movie when Ripley finds herself in a field of alien eggs. New life is emerging from these ‘eggs’ too, not in the form of facehuggers, but as thick stalks topped by conical clusters of flowers known as panicles.

The Royal Horticultural Society put the panic into panicles a couple of years ago when it discovered that what was thought to be friendly Brazilian giant rhubarb, gunnera manicata, was actually a dastardly imposter: a hybrid with the already-banned Chilean giant rhubarb, gunnera tinctoria, which, in the words of the RHS, “is a vigorous plant which has escaped to colonise extensive areas of Ireland and the western parts of the British Isles”.

When the ban on the hybrid was announced, such forthright language escaped to colonise column inches, with gunnera labelled a “criminal” plant and a “menace” that “chokes” other species.

Perhaps worst of all for gunnera is that it has attracted those damning descriptions non-native and invasive, which often seem to imply inferiority and intent.

Just last month the Hampshire Chronicle, under the headline ‘Invasive banned species in Winchester regrows again’, reported that: “A giant invasive species has sprouted again on a riverside path in Winchester after dying off over the winter.” When will it stop? Does it have no respect for the law?

While gunnera may remain an impressive feature in gardens like Trebah, in the wild it’s undoubtedly a pain in the arse at best and a biodiversity problem at worst. But a choking menace? It’s a big stick of rhubarb, not a triffid.

So maybe, son, it’s not the words you know that matter, but the way you use them. For now though, “uh-goooo”, however you want to say it, will uh-doooo.

---

Basking sharks seen on this walk: 0

Total basking sharks seen to date: 0