I live in a forest my parents planted when I was a child. It’s not too late for you to grow one too | Jessie Cole

Sometimes a branch grows so low and bushy that it blocks access to my room. I diligently cut it back

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In the late 1970s when my parents built the house I still live in, there was no forest. The property was a disused cow pasture, full of scrappy grass and weeds. My parents began planting trees before they began the house build, and now - in my lifespan, 47 years - it has grown into a forest. When I was a child we called my parent's plantings the garden", implying a place managed by us. Cultivated, civilised. Somewhere along the way we renamed it the forest". A self-managed ecosystem we occasionally impinged upon - cutting back, cleaning up debris - but only when it made incursions into our actual house.

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