Trees, please! Festival salutes beauty of our fantastic forests
From the smallest acer to the largest giant sequoia, Scotland’s trees are amazing, says Agnes Stevenson, as woodland gardens take centre stage
We’ve reached the season of hips and haws, when every rose that’s not been ruthlessly deadheaded now bears scarlet globes and the berries on the cotoneaster have started to change from green to orange.
Already, rowan trees are bowing under the weight of their fruit and higher in the canopy we are beginning to see the first glimpses of gold appearing.
This weekend marks the start of the Scottish Tree Festival and for the next couple of months trees will take centre stage in the vivid display of autumn colour.
I’m fortunate to live in a wood, surrounded by beech trees and firs, but I still find myself seeking out other woodland gardens, not just for ideas on what to plant, but simply for the experience of walking beneath towering giants.
Last week I was talking to Graham Griffith, property manager at Cawdor Castle near Nairn and he told me that, at the heart of Cawdor’s Big Wood, beyond the Spanish chestnut trees and giant sequoias, lies a remnant of the Ancient Caledonian Forest that once covered most of this country. Woodland, it turns out, is our natural habitat.
However small your garden there is always space for a tree, even if it is an acer in a large container, but if you want to see something really majestic, then the Scottish Tree Festival has lots of suggestions of which gardens to visit and of walks, trails and family activities that can make for a more immersive experience.
Some of my favourite woodlands include Benmore Botanic Gardens near Dunoon, where the avenue of giant sequoias that greets visitors is just the taster for a garden filled with immense trees.
At Glenwhan, which sits above Luce Bay, near to Stranraer, visitors can follow a marked tree trail and discover the many unusual varieties that grow there,
while any of the great estates of Perthshire and Aberdeen, including Scone Palace, Blair Castle and Fyvie near Turriff, are testament to the planting mania, begun in the 18th Century when species were arriving from the Americas and the Far East.
The Ardkinglas estate on Loch Fyne in Argyll has many champion trees, including one known as “the mightiest conifer in Europe.” This European silver fir has a girth of almost 10 metres, so if you plan on trying to hug it, take a group of friends to assist with the task.
And up and down the west coast you can find Scotland’s Atlantic oakwoods, ancient, temperate rainforest that drips with moss and lichen.
There’s something very special about these old woods, but they are under threat from climate change and by deer. So this year, as well as planting trees in your garden, take time to explore what’s out there and experience the beauty of Scotland’s woodlands.
For more on the festival, visit discoverscottishgardens.org/ the-tree-festival