Pontfadog Oak - then there were just 73

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74 trees made it into Heritage Trees Wales but unfortunately only 73 remain standing; the Pontfadog Oak came crashing down in high winds this week. If that was the oldest tree in Wales, supposedly growing since AD 802, what is the oldest tree today? But then again, maybe it’s not dead yet. There have been suggestions of trimming the top and propping it up. If you missed seeing it in the flesh, you can still read about it in this beautiful book and in this BBC news item.

Heritage Trees Wales

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76 trombones in the big parade but only 74 trees in Wales make it into Heritage Trees. A handsome book to dip into and delve around. Nothing too weighty or pompous; good stories well told, leaving you wanting more as opposed to yawning.   

Garthmyl, a small village between Welshpool and Newtown, is not a well known place but important in our family as where my mother grew up. I never thought it would also be home to two (or 3%!) of these nationally famous trees.  The Garthmyl Oak being one and the Garthmyl  Cedar of Lebanon the other. The latter has a chandelier dangling from a lower bough so that the caretakers-come-owners can enjoy it by night!

The book begins with a serious foreword from Pauline at the Tree Council stressing that UK governments, including Wales, do little or nothing to protect these trees.  ...’many could be felled tomorrow without penalty. The value of these trees, these Green Monuments, is already formalised in other countries.’

I just spent £350 having tree surgeons dangle on ropes cutting out the dead and removing 10% of the canopy so that our Scots Pine will keep on growing – maybe the 30^th reprint of Heritage Trees Wales in 2212 will include it if we’ve done the work well and we’re lucky. 

The Scots Pine we care for