As Yogi and I enjoy our slow sniffari’s in her dotage, I spend a bit of time looking up at tree canopies as I stand and wait for the sniff to be sniffed and the pee-mail to be sent. I love the different perspective it gives you of a tree. And in doing so have noticed a few other things too. I walk past one particular Sycamore every day and hadn’t noticed that it has ‘naturally braced’ itself by fusing two limbs about 20 feet high. I assume it has done it itself as there would be no real need to intervene with this particular tree being in a farmers field. But years ago proper old fashioned gardeners used to do it deliberately to add support to large limbs on a substantial tree. More often or not it was done in large gardens or parklands, where they had the trees, the gardeners and the knowledge.

When it happens organically, the phenomenon is known as inosculation – ‘a natural process where two trees grow together, essentially grafting themselves into a single structure’. It occurs when branches or trunks of the same tree – or occasionally different trees - come into continued close contact (often in windy spots) and their bark wears away, allowing their living tissues to fuse and form a natural graft. The result is a unified structure that can share resources like water and nutrients potentially making them stronger and more resistant to environmental stressors.

I can’t find any information about it being done deliberately but there is a beautiful beech tree locally that Dad showed me, when I was about 6 or 7, and where his dad grafted several limbs together to help distribute the weight of the branches as the tree canopy developed. It was for purely practical reasons, not aesthetics, but would no doubt enhance the shape of the canopy. I have never forgotten it and although it is right on the side of a busy main road I doubt many other people know about it. I still occasionally just go and check it – it brings back great memories and a lot of pleasure. My granddad did that before I was born and I am still able to go and appreciate it. That’s pretty special.

Whilst looking skywards, I have also noticed a nest of wild honey bees in an old oak tree just ‘doing their thing’ about 15 ft above people’s heads, and even and owl sitting quietly on a branch of another oak, in the early evening. He was just quietly watching me and Yogi pass beneath him. If I hadn’t been in my ‘looking up’ mode, I would have missed him and the bees.

Stephen Hawking said, “Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet." But it’s worth looking up in the daytime too.

If you are lucky enough to have a glut of any home-grown veggies this year then I applaud you for ‘watering well’. The cartoonist, Bill Tidy always told me that home-grown veg was used as a currency in his village with ‘new and original’ recipes being traded as enthusiastically as the produce itself. I urge you to experiment – most things can be made into a chutney, a ‘bake’ or made ‘posh’ by adding a bit of cream or crème fraiche. Monty Don has a tasty, if rather unusual, recipe for cucumbers. He quickly fries them in butter, adds a splash of cream, and a little salt and pepper. Let it bubble for a minute or so and serve piping hot. That would work with courgettes too – and there’s always a glut of those.