Special Trees At Burghley House

[Gary Prentice]

Yesterday we got a wonderful tour of some of the special trees at Burghley. The Head Forester, Peter, kindly took a small group from Treelife on a tour of the estate -accessing areas normally closed to the public.

 

To be blunt, there are more veterans, ancient, heritage and probably every other classification of special tree than you can imagine. The gardens were redesigned as Capability Browns most special project, which I think was over twenty years. I may be wrong - there was just too much to take in and remember.

 

There's remnants of earlier avenues visible, the trees of which are mostly on their last legs and new avenues that have been planted since the 1980's and that is in the process or replacement currently.Peter is propagating two Tilia x europaea clones from the original plantings both for the new avenues and for use on other estates.

 

The veteran oaks and sweet chestnuts are unbelievable to see and I think everyone was slightly awestruck for most of the day. I could go on and on, but if you live close by, or even if you don't, it's worth a visit. The Special or secret garden ( or whatever it was called) is great for children with loads of water play features and a sculpture garden lies beyond - where people usually relax and picnic.

 

The sixth pic is Mattmoss with the largest chestnut on the estate, just about to comment that we'd need a bigger saw:biggrin:

 

I took so many photo's that my battery went flat, but here's a small selection.

[njmusk]

The missus goes to burghley horse trials every year, says there is some really nice trees there.

 

When we were at kings walden, we had a row of sweet chestnuts across the deer park, reputed to have been planted to celebrate the battle of waterloo.

 

We had some tree society come to measure the oak trees a couple of times. The eldest was dated back to 1066 if memory serves me right.

[agg221]

Those are quite stunning - thanks for posting the pictures.

 

Burghley is not that far from us and I drive past regularly. Perhaps I ought to actually stop and take a look!

 

Alec

[Gary Prentice]

The missus goes to burghley horse trials every year, says there is some really nice trees there.

 

When we were at kings walden, we had a row of sweet chestnuts across the deer park, reputed to have been planted to celebrate the battle of waterloo.

 

We had some tree society come to measure the oak trees a couple of times. The eldest was dated back to 1066 if memory serves me right.

 

Nice trees may be a bit of an understatement.

 

The trials bring a bit of a problem from what we were told. The revenue is important but the impact on the trees is significant. They're spreading woodchip, up to foot deep, under trees with really compacted rooting zones. Within twelve months the soil density shows considerable reduction and improves leaf colouration.

[Gary Prentice]

Those are quite stunning - thanks for posting the pictures.

 

Burghley is not that far from us and I drive past regularly. Perhaps I ought to actually stop and take a look!

 

Alec

 

You won't be disappointed.

[tree-fancier123]

wow, just need to invent something, or learn the stock market and I can have a garden like that

[Gary Prentice]

wow, just need to invent something, or learn the stock market and I can have a garden like that

 

In three hundred plus years.

 

Capability Brown most have been a tremendous salesman, convincing the client that it would great in fifty years.

 

One conversation we had was about the method of replacing one of the lime avenues. The options were piecemeal, replacing the fallen and worse trees or simply to bite the bullet and fell the lot in one go.

 

The Lady of the House apparently said, that the family had been there for five hundred years, so stop faffing about and do the lot in one go. Kind of identifies the families view of their stewardship over generations and the long term view.

 

A few more pics;

[David Humphries]

Did Mr Dowson show/talk about the mulch trials on the veterans?

 

 

Not had the opportunity to visit yet, hopefully one day.

 

 

.

[Gary Prentice]

Wondered how long it would be before you looked in!

 

We did a fair bit of soil density testing with the DJ. The areas where the 38 tonners park and drive showed terrible results, up to 300psi to penetrate. (I think with a 1/2" cone - the larger one anyway)

 

if I'm correct the woodchip mulching started three years ago, up to 300mm deep-fresh chip, and the results were significantly better. We dug a couple of small holes to find roots in the mulch and although we didn't positively find mycorrhiza, earlier excavations have. It's still very short term, but really promising.

 

One of the L6 students has done his personal research project on this but I think admits that the time interval was too short to show increased extension growth.

 

One veteran Sweet Chestnut we looked at had been showing small, yellowing foliage. The rootzone was being used for parking by one of the estate cottages. Peter had installed a parking area outside of the canopy spread and heavily mulched the area. Within twelve months the foliage had enlarged and greened up. We tested there as well, outside the mulch we could barely penetrate, unlike inside. Lots of soil fauna present too.

 

We were also informed that the mulch goes straight down, no herbicide, no cardboard. A comparison between the use of cardboard and without might make an interesting study for someone, maybe counting earthworms for comparison.

[Gary Prentice]

 

 

Not had the opportunity to visit yet, hopefully one day.

 

 

.

 

David, you've got to go, seriously.

 

The problem is that much of the best stuff is situated out of bounds to visitors. The public areas are zoned for six monthly inspections, but the private areas are left pretty much alone. One avenue we walked was so derelict that we probably wouldn't have entered it on a windy day. David actually said that if we heard cracking to look up before deciding which way to run. Maybe a slight exaggeration of the condition, but not much.

 

If any of the Vet Tree groups organise something, you'd want to go or maybe we could organise an Arbtalk visit. I'd happily talk to David and Peter to enquire about the possibility if a few people were interested. They can only say no.