Tree of the Month - July
Two days tree recording at Tregrehan in Cornwall this year has turned up nearly 300 national champion trees, and the garden's total continues to increase rapidly as more and more of the species which are grown nowhere else in the UK or Ireland begin to reach tree-size. A visit to the 'Cornish rainforest' makes the most experienced dendrologist feel like a complete novice again: you are surrounded on all sides by a bewildering array large, beautiful and thriving trees, very few of which you will ever have seen before.
Tom Hudson (owner) and Owen Johnson (Tree Register Registrar) remeasure the tallest Quercus franchetii, an evergreen oak from subtropical southeast Asia. (Note the large stick insect sitting on the blue champion label. We should point out to potential visitors that it doesn't rain all the time at Tregrehan. It just rains enough to make the trees grow.
Owen Johnson MBE VMM
(Photo: Lucy Hudson)