My old friend, how you have grown!

We planted this monkey puzzle tree in a friend's garden as a gift about 40 years ago. At the time it was about one foot high. It hardly gained any height for the next 10 years, but then it stated to grow in earnest! In contrast Mistress Talpa is still much the same height as she was when we did the planting!
The monkey puzzle Araucaria araucaria is native to Chile but it became a favourite ornamental in Europe in Victorian times. The tree possibly gained its popular name because the Victorians reasoned that it would be a real puzzle for monkeys to climb up its whorls of sharp spiny leaves. 
Unfortunately for that theory  there are no monkeys in Chile!