I wonder how many of you who are or were members of the Royal Horticultural Society, fondly remember the Tradescant column at the very beginning. This popular piece appeared between 1975 and 1989 and it was a poorly kept secret that the author was Hugh Johnson, also known for writing about wine. It was a masterclass in concise writing: the pen was wielded like a surgeon’s knife. The writer expressed an opinion with forceful, but kindly charm and he made you think.

However, Hugh Johnson’s chief passion is trees. He has been restoring and planting the gardens at Saling Hall in Essex for 37 years, changing it from a poplar plantation into a fine arboretum. Planting trees is rather like laying down fine wine. It’s an investment for the future. The trees we enjoy most now were never seen in their glory by the people who planted them.

Johnson has just written Trees (see A Good Read). When talking about yews, for instance, he writes about his feelings as being “more of respect, than admiration” and goes on to describe their leaves as the “colour of ancient widows’ shawls”. Few writers are capable of using language as evocatively, but his style is backed by solid information garnered over decades of study. It will satisfy the most passionate dendrologist, the ordinary gardener and the wordsmith. Good garden writing should present the facts and then go beyond them and capture the personality of the plant or the place. Many writers manage the first well enough, but they perch on the fence when it comes to the second. Perhaps that’s why the best writers are opinionated: they have the ability to cut to the chase and then add a bit of themselves too.

Take the section on pears. Johnson explains that “pears, whitebeams and mountain ashes . . . are strange bedfellows” in his first line. It draws you in straight away. Solid information follows. “Pears are wild in Europe and Asia, not in the New World.” He also tells us that pears are long-lived and capable of reaching a remarkable size. He quotes “a girth of 16ft and a height of 60ft” and calls them “black and emphatic in winter”.

When discussing the weeping silver-leaved pear (Pyrus salicifolia ‘Pendula’) he talks about making a silver plantation with weeping silver lime, silver sea buckthorn and weeping pear. He adds: “Did I overdo it? Very likely.” That type of humility makes a book readable. A number of illustrations support the text, and each tree is broken down into a manageable four pages. It covers the ground without being onerous.

I have a whitebeam overhanging my spring and for many years I hoped it had ancient origins because our cottage is close to Roman villa and these trees (thought to be scared by the Romans) were often planted close to springs. Unfortunately, I later discovered it was planted in 1987, but I continue to love the tree —although I would never have planted one myself.

Hugh Johnson starts by explaining the botany. Whitebeams are now in their own genus, Aria, and no longer Sorbus. Then he talks about his Kent childhood when whitebeams “positively flashed like a signalling light from downland copses”. I can feel the downland turf under my feet as I read.