On the day after the storm, I headed to a favourite oak and began gathering some of the thousands of acorns scattered below the wide spreading arms. Both pockets soon bulging with a wood in the making, I set about planting. Tomorrow I’ll switch to crab apples, and then on to field maples, hawthorns, blackthorn, hazel and chestnut.Planting is possible right through to March, and you can do it anywhere: country, town, village, city, roadside, verge, wasteland, roundabout. Just carry a small trowel and a big dream of shade and shelter. Willows can also be grown by simply cutting a yard-long branch with at least two buds, one at either end, and pushing half of it in to the ground. Of course, the probability of an acorn growing to an oak is minuscule, each mature tree is a lottery winner