Blog

All things yellow at Westonbirt...

January and February are a busy time for the team here at Westonbirt! Before the cold weather really sets in, our tree team must find new homes for hundreds of new plants.

You may notice some temporary traffic lights outside the arboretum today and tomorrow (27 and 28 January 2016).

Chalara dieback of ash, commonly known as ash dieback, caused by the Hymenoscyphus fraxineus fungus, has been confirmed at Westonbirt, The National Arboretum, this autumn.

Deciding when to remove old trees is one of the hardest decisions we have to take here at Westonbirt.

Today I ventured over to Silk Wood to see how some of the Tree Team were getting on with essential tree safety work, which reassuringly was being carried out to a high standard as always.

It's always sad to say goodbye to a big old tree like the oak we felled earlier this week near to the restaurant.

This week, work began on dismantling a large oak tree near to the Westonbirt Restaurant. Curator Mark Ballard explains why the decision to remove this much-loved tree was made.

Today I got to escape my office for a few hours, with the aim of finding suitable locations for some of the 300 young trees and shrubs that have been lovingly grown in our very own Propagation Unit.

If you have ventured into Silk Wood recently you may well have noticed our Tree Team hard at work in Maple Loop, which is an area was that was once a forest research plot packed full of hybrid larch trees.

As I write, we continue to be at the mercy of the all too familiar wet & windy weather, it has already been a long winter.

No two days are the same for me at Westonbirt, & I have to say that the great variety of my role is something that I do enjoy.

Well, we are at the heart of yet another exciting autumn at Westonbirt right now, and I have to say that although every year is different in some way, I am yet to be disappointed.

An Australian colleague of mine has recently moved back down under, and before he departed I asked him what he would most miss about living in the UK.

Welcome to another exciting autumn at Westonbirt, the National Arboretum.