Gardens: A tree's bark is much better than its height, says photographer Cedric Pollett

When we're choosing trees to plant in our gardens, lots of factors come into consideration. The tree's eventual size, it's shape, the conditions it needs to grow well, and how much it offers in terms of autumn colour, flowers or fruit all play a part in the decision-making process. But how many of us would put "bark" at the top of our list of criteria?

One person who does value bark is French photographer Cedric Pollet. He has spent ten years travelling the world, in search of trees whose bark makes you pause for thought. And that doesn't just mean exotic species - his photographs also capture the extraordinary texture, colour and details of trees that we think of as rather ordinary. The result of his work is a book, Bark: An Intimate Look at the World's Trees (30, Frances Lincoln), which having won a number of awards in France, including the art prize Redait Prix Artistique, has now been published in the UK.

So where does Pollet's fascination with tree bark come from? "I've had the chance to live in beautiful places (Nice, the South of France and the Alps) where landscapes and nature are gorgeous," he says. "The first 'trigger' was when I was a teenager and my family went to California. It was such a beautiful trip, experiencing the giant Sequoias and wonderful landscapes such as Monument Valley, Death Valley and the Grand Canyon." Pollet says that encouragement from his biology teacher was another influence and that his fate was sealed when he studied horticulture and landscape design in the late 1990s at Reading University. "I love the English garden style and I visited many gardens belonging to the National Trust," he says. "One day I just fell in love with a very old oak tree with a large trunk and fissured bark. It was my first bark picture and the start of my career as a botanist photographer."

Returning to France, Pollet began to look at the trees in avenues, parks and public gardens more closely and he says he felt as if he was seeing his home town for the first time. A small exhibition of his bark photographs didn't go unnoticed by the art world and led to over 50 further exhibitions. He seems to have found a niche and points out that you can count the number of books about trees on the fingers of one hand. "There are so many things to show and learn about bark," he says. "It's such a wonderful world with plenty of colour and textures that usually nobody sees because when people go to visit a garden, they usually go there for flowers or foliage. Bark is often neglected except in some gardens in the UK where bark is the main attraction during winter - the effect is just amazing."

"Amazing" is a word that could happily be applied to many of the photos in his book. Most eye-catching are the colourful tree barks such as the Rainbow Eucalyptus and Tasmanian Snow Gum tree, which both look as if their multi-coloured bark has been painted on. The peeling bark of the Strawberry Tree is another star, as is the orange-red bark of the Madrone tree, which peels off in the summer to show new apple-green bark underneath. Pollet includes accompanying historical and botanical information about the trees he's photgraphed. The Madrone tree, for instance, was discovered in 1790 on the west coast of North America by Scottish naturalist Archibald Menzies. As well as having such a striking appearance, the tree's bark was used by the Native American Indians to tan hides and for medicinal purposes. Pollet points out that products created from bark are present in our daily lives, such as cinnamon, cork, rubber, incense, medicines, chewing gums and fibres. Trees have been essential to many civilizations, being used for medicine, food, shelter, tools and implements as well as their role in terms of the water and oxygen. "If trees disappear, humans will follow," he says.

In his book, Pollet explains that depending on the species, the bark can stay fixed on the trunk throughout the whole life of the plant or it can fold and crack, as seen on the monkey puzzle tree. Others can peel annually in patches and strips. The trick is knowing at what stage in a tree's life its bark is most interesting and being there to capture it. Some trees, like maples, are most dramatic when they are younger, whereas others like pines take many years to develop an attractive bark. "The problem is that almost no-one has studied bark in this way," says Pollet. "So I felt a bit like an explorer and it was very exciting. First you have to identify the different species that have good potential for barks. You have the most well known ones like the Betula, Acer, Eucalyptus or Pinus genus. But it was a challenge to discover other species from all over the world. Then, you have to check in the wild or in tree collections and arboreta to find the most photogenic specimens."

Pollet whittled down his collection of over 15,000 photographs to just 400, covering nearly 220 species of tree. He says that when he holds an exhibition of his work he gets feedback that people now look at the trees around them in a new way. As well as showing trees in a new light, he hopes that his work will encourage people to think more about our natural environment and what we should be doing to care for it. As for helping people to choose the right tree for their garden, he says "you need to take many criteria into consideration - climate, temperature, rain, exposure, soil, size of the garden, the colours you want, shade and so on. After this analysis, there are probably just a few species that could be planted in the right place for the best bark impact." So rather than making the decision easier, this book gives gardeners lots more to think about.

Cedric is always looking for new bark specimens, so if you have something to share with him, just e-mail him ([email protected]). He plans to visit Scotland shortly, www.cedric-pollet.com

• This article was first published in The Scotsman on September 25, 2010